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Leaning against the fence, with the milk-pail 
in her hand." — Page 17. 




BUNDLE 

_0F_ 

FAGOTS 



BY 
LAVINIA HARTWELL EGAN 



<$^>^ 



franklin ohio 
The Editor Publishing Co 

1895 



Copyright 1895, by 
The Editor Publishing Co 









PREFACE 



Tile stories eontained in this volume comprise gleanings 
from the six years of my more or less intermittent work as a 
writer. Not a few of them were done when I was a student at 
Ward Seminary, Nashville, Tennessee, and served only as fagots 
to keep the pot boiling while I pursued the study of drawing 
and painting. In the course of time, the boiling of the pot 
became the absorbing question, and drawing and painting had 
to give place to the steady work of fagot-gathering. 

The way that I have trod in pursuit of this work has been 
a very pleasant one, and the kindly hand that has guided mine 
throughout is that of Mr. D. G. Fenno, Managing Editor of the 
Philadelphia Times. In the old studio days when life was young 
and hope was new, there was a dear friend whose easel sat 
beside my own, and together we planned our lives. But An- 
other planned, and the lines diverged to meet again when Miss 
Louise Lewis made the illustrations which add so much to the 
interest of these pages. 

If I write other and better books by and by, will the friends 
who read this remember that I hoped to do so ? 
Very truly, 

LAVINIA HAKTWELL EGAN. 

Shreveport, Louisiana, 
Deo. 4, 1895. 



To my Mother and Father 

This, the first fruits of my pen, is 

Affectionately dedicated. 

lyavinia Hartwell Rg-an. 



CONTENTS. 





PAGK 


The Legend of the Rift, 


7 


A Presidential Appointment, 


. 31 


How Hank and His Folks Saw the Show, 


47 


Snow-white, . . . . . . 


. 55 


Thomas McTair and His Nancy, 


65 


An Unbroken Bond, . . . . . 


. 78 


A Belated Spring Time, 


86 


At the Station, . . . . . 


. 99 


Neighbors, ...... 


111 


Another Valentine, . . . . . 


. 121 


Mexican Joe's Freedom, .... 


134 


At the Turn of the Stair, .... 


. 138 


Only a Tramp, ..... 


144 


The Wild Huntsman of Sequatchie Valley, 


. 148 


Miss Pim's Party, .... 


165 


A Break in the Levee, . . . . 


. 178 



The Legend of the Rift. 



CHAPTER I. 



fHE changeful mid-August air blew nippingly 
through the chinks of Bill Teague^s log cabin, 
perched high up on a long western spur of the 
Cumberland ridge in East Tennessee, and within the 
cavernous chimney-depths beyond the wide hearth, 
the fire-light blazed and flared, sending out narrow 
rays that crept into every corner of the little room, 
and threw quaint shadows straggling up among the 
smoky rafters. Its warm glow touched the wide- 
ruffled white cap of Granny McDermot, dozing and 
nodding in her low chair in the corner ; it shone upon 
the clicking knitting-needles in Penny Shackleford's 
nimble, bony fingers, and upon the rasping cards in 
Mrs. Teague^s lazy, fat ones, and glinted upon the 
loose brown curls that broke about Licia^s brow as 
she trod softly back and forth before the spinning- 
wheel. 

Licia Teague was a tall, slim, blue-eyed young 
thing, with smooth, fair skin, and a glow of color in 
2 



her high cheeks, and now and then as the wide wheel 
whirred busily she added the music of her voice in a 
sweet, crooning contralto. 

But the crooning and the whirring and the knit- 
ting and the carding suddenly ceased. With a scream 
that sent the empty pipe from between her own tooth- 
less gums, and the clicking needles from Penny 
Shackleford's nimble fingers, rattling noisily upon 
the hearth-stones below. Granny waked from her 
doze and sprang to her feet, her head trembling, her 
cap-strings fluttering. 

" What ails yer, Granny? " said Licia,''going to her 
and taking her by the hand. 

"Don't yer tech me, chile,'' said the old woman. 
" A vision is before me." 

Her voice was singularly rich, deep and unquaver- 
ing, her eyes glowed and shone beneath her beetling 
brows, and her head towered straightly erect above 
Licia's as she held the girl off with one hand, and, with 
the other, extended her stout staff as a seer might a 
divining rod. Penny Shackleford and Mrs. Teague 
only gazed at the old woman in open-mouthed amaze- 
ment as she went on fiercely, staring straight before 
her. 

" I hear the stirring of a great wind, and see the 
burning of a fierce fire ! I see death and destruction 
an' dreary desolation ! I see the lappin' of the flame 
tongues an' the whirlin' of the blindin' smoke ! I 
hear the curses of strong men, an' the wailing of 
women an' the cryin' of young child'n ! Woe ter them 
that give suck this night, an' ter the mountain woman, 
who suffers in the perils of childbirth ! Woe, woe, 
woe ! For the finger of God is pointed in wrath, and 



the flame tongues turn upon the hands that lighted 
them. Woe, woe, woe ! ^' 

The sparkling eyes hid themselves again beneath 
the wrinkled lids, the cap-strings fl^uttered and were 
still ; the outstretched staff fell to the floor with a 
crash, and the old woman herself sank in a heap on 
the hearth at Licia\s feet. 

^' The old 'un air clean daft," said Penny Shackle- 
ford by and by, when the three women had put 
Granny away for the night in the fat, round bed in 
the corner. The nimble Penny had resumed her seat 
in the chimney-jamb, and was trying vainly to pick 
up the stitches lost on Granny's vision. 

Licia only glanced up at her sharply without 
speaking. The girl had set the wheel back into its 
corner, and, from Granny's low chair, was watching 
the fire pictures glow and fade. 

^' The Lord knows whar Licia's Pa is at this 
night,'' said Mrs. Teague, devoutly. 

The present Mrs. Teague was the second of the 
name, and only Licia's step-mother. She usually 
spoke of her husband as '^ Licia's Pa," because it 
seemed to her somehow to keep the proper relation- 
ship in evidence, and to save trouble generally, and 
Mrs. Teague always did cheerfully anything that 
saved trouble. 

'^ Yes, the Lord only knows whar he is, Sister Liz'- 
beth," said the nimble Penny. ^' He ain't been home 
sence yistiddy mornin'." 

"Yer ain't got no call ter say the Lord only 
knows, Penny Shackleford," said Licia, without lift- 
ing her eyes from the fire, " seein's I know 'bout 's 
well as the Lord do." 



10 

'^ Well, I say, Licia Teague, you air a cool 'un, 
you air/^ said the fat Mrs. Teague. " A body would 
'low as mebbe you an' the Lord was sorter in cahoot 
the way you let on, an' you a j'iner, too; you oughter 
be 'shame ter talk thater way ! " 

"You air wastin' yer breath. Miss Liz'beth," said 
the girl, wdth the patience of utter indifference. " Yer 
mought need it termorrow, mebbe, when yer'll likely 
see as the old 'un air none so daft after all." 

" The way that gal do let on beats my time," said 
the nimble Penny, with a sniff of her sharp nose. 
" Likely you kin tell whether your Pa air dead or 
'live, seeiu' he have been gone so long." 

A groan from Mrs. Teague at the dubious sugges- 
tion made Licia lean forward and put her hand gently 
upon her step-mother's stout arm. 

" You air overly nimble with yer tongue. Penny 
Shackleford, but Bill Teague air all right. Miss 
Liz'beth," she said, reassuringly. " He war ever one 
ter look out fer hisse'f." 

Whatever knowledge or suspicion she may have 
had, however, concerning her father's whereabouts 
must not at least have been particularly reassuring, 
for it was with considerable uneasiness about him that 
she crept into bed beside Penny in the little back 
room by and by. 

The one small narrow window in the close little 
room w^as just beside the girl's head, and when the 
voice of the sleeping Penny rasped out its slumber- 
ous staccato Licia opened the wooden shutter and 
leaned her head against the broad sill, looking out 
into the night. Away up the mountain side, toward 
the Rift, an owl screeched its unwelcome plaint, and. 



11 

with a shiver, the girl stole from bed and crept softly 
through the open door into the next room, feeling 
with her hands upon the floor in the dark till she 
found one of Granny's slippers by the bedside, and 
turned it upside down to break the spell of the omin- 
ous bird's warning. 

CHAPTER II. 

Even the turning of a slipper could not break the 
spell that hung over all the mountain. The spirit of 
the times imbued its tree-crowned fastnesses, and the 
smouldering fires of discontent, touched by the fuse 
of oppression, were bursting into flame. 

The morning of the thirteenth came but tardily 
over the eastern hills, as if to defer the evil day. 
About the little cabins, all along the hillslopes, women- 
folk went laggingly to their work, their hearts with the 
men who were making a struggle with destiny, their 
hopes with the issue of the day's work. 

Up the ridge at Tracey City the guards, worn and 
spent with nights of fruitless watching, moved sleej)ily 
to their accustomed duties within the stockade, or fol- 
lowed the restless, sullen convicts to the mines and 
the coke-ovens. At a small, uncovered table in the 
long, silent refectory Warden Stone sat eating his 
solitary breakfast. Through the open doorway he 
could see, now and then, one of the guards pass, his 
head bowed and his footsteps lagging ; the sunlight, 
steamy with the recent mist, blazed in the dust of the 
bare yard and on the glaring, whitewashed barracks. 
The whole thing oppressed him. Deep down in his 



12 

heart he understood and sympathized with the rebel- 
lion and discontent which he knew were lurking 
without the stockade's high wall, but, honest man that 
he was, he had determined to protect to the utmost 
the interest of the men he represented. He put the 
knife and fork across his still unen]])tied plate and was 
leaving the tabh^, when a brisk step without startled 
him. 

'^ You are wanted at the gate, sir,^' said the guard, 
in a hoarse, sleepy voice, turning at once to go. 

As Stone went down the steps and into the yard a 
kitten, a pretty little black and white thing, ran out 
from the kitchen behind and rubbed itself about his 
feet. Without thinking, perhaps, he stooped and 
picked the little thing up and carried it in his arms 
to the gate. 

^^What do you want?'' he asked of the miner, 
wdio stood without, waiting for him. 

^^Ter tell yer that the drivers an' bosses have 
struck," said the man, sullenly. 

Stone stopped and put the kitten down into the 
dusty road, Avaitiug till he saw it run away over the 
broken slate dumps toward the town, then he turned, 
himself, and started to the nearest convict mine. As 
he came to the entrance of the cave the donkey cart 
passed out over the tramway, dumping its black load 
beside the track ; within he could hear a muffled 
sound of singing, and now and then the sharp click 
of a pick. 

^^ Yer better not go in thar, sir," said the cartman, 
unhitching his mule. 

"Why not?" asked Stone a little sharply, as he 
wheeled about. 



13 

The man only jerked his thumb over his shoulder 
without speaking, and with less of consternation than 
of surprise, perhaps, Stone saw a long line of men 
marching through the stockade gate. 

" They air the free miners, sir/^ said the cartman, 
" an' they mean mischief, they do." 

Stone pushed his soft felt hat down upon his head 
and ran rapidly up the slope to the stockade. 

A group of miners came to the gate to meet him 
from within. 

^^ We'uns air changed things up some'at in here, 
sir,'' said one of them, touching his cap with his left 
hand; there was a gun in his right. 'MVe'U hafter 
hoi' yer guards fer a while yit, what few yer got here, 
but we don't mean no harm ter you, ef yer'U jes' be 
easy. We'uns have stood erbout as much as we air 
gwineter; that's all, sir. The men air movin' the 
things out'n the offices thar ; whenst they git th'ough 
we'uns air goin' ter burn the stockade." 

^^ There's no use in doing that, men," began Stone. 

"Use ernough," said a big, heavy-browed man, 
stepping up beside the spokesman. '^ Mebbe yer 
know as I'm Bill Teague, sir, an' ef yer do, yer like- 
wise knows I mean what I say. We air free men, we 
air, an' we aim ter be treated as sech. We air fightin' 
fur bread an' meat, an' we fight ter win." The men 
behind murmured their assent, and Teague went on. 
" Yer kin have yer jail birds by an' by, an' clear 
out'n here with 'em, but right now yer'll hafter lay 
low whilst we'uns sen's this here ol' barracks to 
Kingdom Come." 

There was not long to wait. The dry, lime- 
coated barracks burned like tinder, the flames spread- 



14 

ing with their ovvu wind. An escort of the miners had 
loaded a train with the convicts and their guards, and 
as Stone stood on the rear platform of the receding 
coach he saw the little black-and-white stockade kit- 
ten come out of the station, rubbing itself against the 
facing of the door. Away off up the slope the fire 
blazed and flared, the smoke clouds blotting the sky. 



CHAPTER III. 

At Cowan they met an up-going train, a special 
carrying a company of State troops to the relief of 
the Tracey City camp. 

^^ You boys are too late,'' said Stone to the officer 
in charge. 

^^ Our orders were to go to Tracey," said the Cap- 
tain, stepping upon the car as the bell rang. 

" God help them and bring them through all 
right," said Stone a little sadly, as he shook himself 
into his seat and pulled his hat down over his eyes. 

^' Well, it seems there is nothing left for us to do 
but to follow the brilliant example of the King of 
France, and march down the hill again," said the 
Captain, ruefully, when once they got up the moun- 
tain. " I have wired for return orders, and we shall 
have to wait here till they come." 

" In the meantime, I should like leave of absence 
for a few hours," said a tall young Sergeant, who sat 
looking out of the window of the car. 

"What's the game, Mac? "asked the Captain, 
with a laugh. 

" Nothing," said the young fellow, stretching his 



15 

long limbs. ^^ I used to live over there on that lower 
spur once, and I think I should like to take a look 
at the old land, that is all. I shall report on time, 
Captain. ^^ 

Up the slope the stockade smoked and burned, but 
the mines were silent and empty ; the fires were out 
in the coke furnaces, and all was quiet in the little 
dirty town. The young man crossed the dusty road, 
and, dropping down the mountain side, was soon deep 
in the underbrush. The afternoon air was hot and 
stifling and dense from the smoking barracks, but he 
took oiFhis close-fitting cap and unbuttoned the high 
collar of his coat. 

" I Avonder if Licia will know me," he said softly 
under his breath ; '^ little Licia Teague.'^ 

He had stooped to break a frond of sweet fern 
that shot up in the path, when the cracking of a dry 
twig startled him, and he turned to find himself look- 
ing straight down the barrel of a pistol. 

They were desperate looking men enough, the 
two who stood over him, but he was no coward. 
^^ What is it?'' he asked, drawing himself up. 

'^ Yes, that's what we 'low, too; what is it?" 
said one of the men, without moving. ^^ What do 
you'uns mean by comin' here with them soljer clo'es 
on in these mountings ? We air free men, we air, an' 
we want no sech trundle-bed trash as you'uns pesterin' 
'roun' here." 

^' Why, Bill Teague," said the young fellow, when 
the man was done ; " don't you know me?" 

^^ Yes, I know yer well ernough, Dan'l McAl- 
pine," Teague answered. '^ I knowed yer mother 
afore yer ; I'd know them eyes er Hester Levan's ef 



16 

yer'd drapped out'n heaven with 'em. She gin me the 
slip oncet, but my turn^s come now. We'uns air set- 
lin' up many er ol' score on the mountings this day, 
an' I air ghid you happened erh)ng to git your shur.'^ 

" What do'you mean, man ? " asked Dan, sharply. 

" Likely yer'll fin' out," Teague answered. '' Yer 
know the way to the Rift ridge, don't yer?'' 

"Yes," said Dan. 

" Well, strike a trot." 

" To the Rift ? " asked Dan. '' Why, man, that is 
miles awav, and I must re])ort at eight." 

" Well, von air a fresh 'un," said Teague, with a 
grin. '' Likely yer'll take yer marehin' orders funi 
me yit erwhile, though. (tIvc us yer gun an' lead on 
ter the Rift. Me an' Aaron here'll foller." 

How dear and familiar everything seemed to Dan 
in the little wooded trail up the mountain, and how 
sweet the air was when the sun had gone, and he 
passed beyond reach of the smoke fumes ! By and 
by came the glorious afterglow, warming all the 
niisty valley and tipping the treetops wdth color, till 
silently out of the darkness shot the moon, playing 
hide-aiid-seek among the trees as he passed, and sift- 
ing in patches of silver on the path through the 
underbrush. How beautiful it all was to Dan, who 
loved it so, and how glad he was for the very joy of 
living ! 

CHAPTER IV. 

The next morning heaven itself seemed to have 
bent down to touch the earth, or else some Titan's 
hand held the hills aloft, Avaving their tree-plumes in 



17 

the clouds. The mist was over all, subtle, illusive, 
entrancing, hiding sights familiar, and holding, per- 
haps, all that one hoped. 

In the midst of it, with its dampness cooling her 
cheeks and curling the soft tendrils of hair about her 
brow, stood Licia, leaning against the fence with the 
milkpail in her hand. But the tinkling of the cow- 
bell came faintly from the underbrush below, and 
within the little pen the still unawakened caH' slept 
in satisfied comfort, unready for his morning's meal. 
The air was sweet with the odor of the morning, and 
the green leaves bent down, heavy with the moisture 
they seemed to hold greedily. 

Licia watched the little space about her grow 
gradually more and more as the mists crept slowly 
backward with the coming of the sun over the hill- 
tops ; yet across the gorge, high up on the Rift ridge, 
fended by the trees, they still lingered, wrapping fold 
on fold about the rocks, weaving pictures that grew 
and faded between the tree-bolls. But, besides the 
tree-trunks and the sprawling underbrush, what was 
it that the girl saw up there in the mist? What was 
it that seemed to make her heart stop beating as she 
stood there wide-eyed and startled in the early morn- 
ing light? High up on the ridge, with the veil of 
cloud enwrapping them, she had seen the faint figures 
of a man and a woman that seemed to beckon to her 
with dim spirit hands as together they sank through the 
mist into the darkness. 

''The wraiths o' the Rift,'' said Licia, with a 
shudder. 

Even as she spoke the mists parted, and now quite 
plainly in the sunlight she saw the two men that 



18 

seemed to scramble up from the very jaws of the 
earth there among the rocks, and who disappeared to- 
gether over the ridge. Tall, stalwart fellows they 
were and clad in the loose, ill-fitting garb of the 
mountaineer; what could it mean? Stranger even 
than the wraiths that beckoned her seemed it to Licia 
to see these mountain men up there on the Rift ridge. 

^' Ha'nts' groun V it had always been, this riven, 
rocky ledge, all circled about with stories, weird 
legends born of the mists perhaps, and full of the 
pathos that is ever found in the lore of a simple folk 
who live forever in the clouds. As the years passed 
these stories had grow^i w^th the telling, parodoxically 
waxing stronger as their age increased, till more and 
more the mountain people had come to shun the mist- 
wrapped ridge, with its narrow, broken ledge jutting 
far out over the wooded gorge. 

"It w^ar ever a God-fursaken place, the Rift ridge 
war,'^ Granny McDermot always said. "He air jes' 
leP it to ha'nts an' sech, that bare ledge up thar 
'mongst the clouds, an' folks as sense the workings er 
His onseen han' knows He never rifted them rocks 
fur nothin'. It air onhallered groun', that air, an' 
nought but evil comes ter them as njeddles with it. 
In His own good time the Lord '11 sen' it all, piece by 
piece, down inter the darkness. That air a true 
word, fur two rifts I've knowed up thar in my day 
an' time, an' likely them as come afore me knowed 
more ; I dunno, I dunno ! Mebbe it war the fust 'un 
that come early in my day, but even then, howsom- 
ever, the place war kinder onmolested, an' we'uns 
never beared er the Rift tell Ab Somers he foun' it. 
Ab war a wild 'un, he war, an' thev do sav he come 



19 

here with a price erpuii his head, but howsomever 
that may be, he gin'ly managed ter keep hisse^f 
skuree in the daytime, an' oncet when the sheriff an' 
his posse fum over the mountings yon way come 
hereabouts kinder still an' sarchin' like, Ab he warn't 
no whar ter be foun', an' arter while, whenst he did 
turn up, he tol' erbout the Rift 'crost the ledge up 
thar. Jes' a narrow crack he said it war, cuttin' the 
rocks crostwise fum the ridge, an' they do say as how 
Ab oughter know, sence he had crope inter the Rift, er 
hidin' tell the sheriff war out'n the way. Ab war a 
cute 'un, anyhow, he war, an' purty ter look at, but 
somehow folks didn't seem ter take ter him ; least- 
ways none but 'Riah Peddy. 'Spite er ever'thing, 
whatsomever a man may be, thar's some woman some- 
whar fool ernough ter keer fur him ; and sech er one war 
'Riah. Wrastle with her how they mought, her Pa an' 
Ma couldn't ween her off'n Ab Somers, oncet she sot her 
head thater way. So we'uns warn't 'sprised none 
whenst one mornin' Ab an' 'Riah war both gone ; no- 
body knowed how nur whar. Arter 'while, tho', 
folks comin' fum down the cove thar ter the west'ard 
'lowed that now an' ergin, when the sun hung low, 
techin' only on the high lan's,they viewed sometimes 
a man an' a woman up thar on the ridge, Ab an' 
'Riah mo'n likely hidin' in the Rift. Howsomever, 
nobody have ever seed hair nur hide uv 'em fum that 
good day ter this, an' thar's reason ernough fur not 
seein' 'em, too, sence 'twar 'long er that time the big 
herricance come, strippin' the mountings an' snappin' 
down trees same as yer'd break off a witch-hazel 
switch fer a toothbrush. 'Twar that storm as opened 
the cl'arin' thar overlookin' the valley, an' in the 



20 

thick er the thunder an' lightin' we'uns here on the 
spurs heared a soun' that echoed an' viberated 'ginst 
the mounting side like the Day er Judgment come ter 
han', and whenst it war all over we seen the Rift had 
parted, the overhangin' ledge had fell, mo'n likely 
takin' Ab an' 'Riah erlong with it an' buryin' uv 'em 
fnrever down thar in the darkness 'mongst the trees. 

^' Howsomever, they have never been viewed 
theyse'ves sence the night er the leavin', the'r ha'nts 
may be seen when the mist is white on the ridge, an' 
the soun' er the'r voices is heared tell yit when the 
winds wail in the gorge an' scream 'roun' them 
scarred an' riven rocks up thar. But woe ter them 
as happens ter view the ha'nts, er hears po' Ab an' 
'Riah screechin' in the win' ! Many er one thar be 
as have viewed the wraiths ter the'r sorrow, but 'long 
er the fust war little Millisy Mathis down ter the 
cove. One mornin', whilst she war crostin' the spur 
thar, her an' her little brother Bud — him as runs the 
tanyard yonder ter the crost-roads — Millisy she chance 
ter turn her eyes twodes the Rift, kinder onbe- 
knowinst like, an' way up thar in the mist she seen 
the wraiths uv Ab an' 'Riah. Skurce turned 'er fif- 
teen she war then, but afore the year war out the po' 
chile scrambled up thar ter the Rift rock an' slid 
down over the precipice ter hide a shame she daresn't 
face. 

'^ Prit nigh twenty years passed, with now an' 
then some one nuther seein' the ha'nts up thar on the 
ridge, an' whosomever viewed 'em, bad luck war sho 
ter foller. 'Long er them days the purtiest gal in the 
mountings war Hester Levan. Whenst the trees is 
bare, acrost the gorge thar on the nex' spur, you kin 



21 

view the oV Levan cabin, empty these eight year, 
whar Hester lived. She war alius purty, Hester war, 
ef I do say it, an' thar warn't nair young man in all 
the mounting side as didn't want her ; but thar warn't 
never but one that she ever seemed ter favor none. 
Howsomever, I 'lowed fum the fust she somehow helt 
her head too high fur sech as come fum hereabouts. 
Thar's some folks as thinks the best uv everything 
comes fum far off, an' Hester war thater way." 

Just who the favored of Hester's fickle fancy 
might have been. Granny herself did not say, but 
upon the mountain side — the story ran, that back in the 
sixties, when Bill Teague left home with a gun on 
his shoulder — he carried with him Hester Le van's 
promised word. Be that as it may, however, certain 
it is that he found no bride awaiting him when the 
war was over and he came home. 

^' The misfort'n all come er Hester's viewin' the 
ha'nts o' the Rift," Granny always said. " One 
morin' early, soon arter the boys war mostly gone off 
in the army, Hester 'lowed she viewed Ab an' 'Riali 
plain as day up thar on the rocks, wavin' an' beck'nin' 
ter her out'n the mist. Somehow, nuther, it never 
seem ter pester her none ; she's alius so pyert, Hester 
war, an' us'n ter do as she please. Even when thar 
never come no news er the boys, an' ever'body was 
pestered some, 'specially them as had men gone in 
the army, Hester she didn't seem ter keer much. It 
war mighty little we'uns beared, too, in them days, 
sho'. 'Twas all so fur 'way, the war was; even 
Chicamauga an' Missionary Ridge didn't seem ter be 
nigh ernough ter hurt much. It was only when one 
er the boys 'ud come stragglin' back with a arm er a 



22 

leg lef belli n^ in the valley^ er sometimes whenst the 
raiders dashed over the mountings thatwe'uns heared 
tell er the war. 'Longerbout the time Hester Levan 
viewed the ha'nts, Gin^l Forrest an' his men clum' up 
the mountings, thar under the Point, ter the south'- 
ard an' swep' over the ridge. The evenin' er that 
same day, jes' as the sun settled twixt them two 
ridges over thar crost the valley, Hester Levan, er 
trapsin' th'ough the underbresh lookin' fur her oP 
muley that was over late er comin' ter the cow^-pen, 
looked up crost the gorge an' seen on the Rift ridge 
thar the liger uv a man 'ginst the sky. So plain she 
viewed him tell she knowed him ter be a soljer, an' 
whilst she still looked she seen him drap out er sight 
as ef the earth had opened an' swallowed him up. 
She war ever a cute 'un, Hester war, an' skeered er 
nothin'; so jest' leavin' the cow ter git home in her 
own good time, she sot the milk-pail down by the 
spring an' sayin' naught ter no one, she clum' up the 
ridge thar tell she come ter the very top whar she'd 
viewed the man. Then she seen what we'uns hadn't 
s'picioned afore, that a new Rift was openin' in the 
rocks. 'Twar inter this the man had slipped — Mc- 
Alpine his name war. Major Mc Alpine — an' Hester 
foun' him a' most dead w^ith w'ariness an' outdone 
with pain, sence he'd broke his leg whenst he fell, an' 
was jes' hangin' thar ter the sides er the Rift. They 
do say that fum the time Hester seen him hangin' 
thar she had heart nur thought fur no man else in all 
the worl'. Howsomever that may be, leastways she 
did have him tuck down ter the cabin crost thar, 
whar her an' ol' Miss Levan, Hester's ma what uster 



23 

be, they nussed him back ter health an' strenk, an' 
arter while, whenst he leP, Hester went 'long, too, as 
his wife." 

^' But that warn't bad luck. Granny," Licia had 
said, romantic little soul that she was, when the old 
woman told her the story long ago. 

" Wait an' see, wait an' see, chile," Granny had 
said. '^ Misfortin's sho ter foller them as views the 
ha'nts o' the Rift ridge." 

^^Misfortin' ernough to a married a valley man," 
Bill Teague had said, when he came home to find no 
bride awaiting him. It was not till long afterwards 
that he consoled himself with Granny's pretty grand- 
daughter, the sweet, young thing, who was Licia's 
mother, and who had died when the girl was born. 

It was of all this that Licia was thinking as she 
stood there in the early morning and saw the wraiths 
o' the Rift beckoning to her in the mists. Would 
they bring ill-luck to her, she wondered, or, perhaps, 
the fate that had come to Hester Levan ? 

Then she thought of something else, this slim, 
young maiden with her head in the clouds. There 
seemed to come to her a vision of a lonely little girl, 
scarce more than a wide-eyed, curly-haired toddler, 
who had sat on the cold stones under the trees, look- 
ing across the gorge at the blue smoke swirling up 
from the Levan cabin, and wondering what they were 
doing over there, the woman — widowed now — who 
had found her love in the Rift so long ago, and the 
child whom she had brought back with her to the 
mountains. She remembered, too, that as the little 
girl had sat dreaming there had come scrambling up 
3 



24 

under the rocks through the underbrush, a boy with 
a russet light in his rough, curling hair, and a glow 
of color in all liis sunburnt face. Licia remembered 
how brightly his eyes had shone when he saw her, 
this young Dan Mc Alpine, Hester Le van's son, and 
how his clear voice had echoed on the mountain side. 
What a glad day that had been to her, and after- 
wards ! It seemed to Licia that she remembered 
everything; the little windmill he had set for her, 
where the water gurgled over the stones beneath the 
laurel ; the snares for birds, which he had made 
among the underbrush ; the whistles he had turned 
for her eager lips, and the songs he taught her to sing 
till the eclio of them came back to iier in her shrill 
child's voice across the years. She could smell again 
the odor of the sweet fern that he bn>ught back with 
him from the Rift, when he had scrambled up there 
once, and hear his laugh as he called to her to look at 
him standing high on the ledge, while she hid her 
eyes lest they should see him going down into the 
darkness. But better than all, perhaps, she remem- 
bered the day, eight years ago now, when Dan came 
to tell her goodby ; his father's people had sent for 
them, and he and his mother were going back to the 
valley again. Licia was only a slim little thing of 
ten then, and Dan had taken her tearful face in his 
two hands and kissed it. 

" Don't cry, dear ; don't cry," he had said, gently. 
** Some day I shall come back and take you away, 
just as father did mother long ago. Don't cry, and 
don't forget." 

Not to cry, that had been hard, but not to forget ? 



Ah, me ! Do women ever forget — women, who re- 
member with their hearts? Had she forgotten, she 
who had waited through the years? Did she forget 
when she saw the wraiths beckoning to her in the 
mist? Was it a premonition of evil that made her 
heart cease to beat when she saw the men scramble up 
out of the Rift on the "haunts' o^round?" 



CHAPTER V. 

Bill Teagiie, riding up through the trees, into the 
little rocky trail that led from the gorge below, drew 
rein sharply when he saw the girl still leaning upon 
the fence overlooking the road. 

" You air u]) early, '^ he said shortly. It was a 
saying common among the mountain j)eople that 
Teaa:ue\s dauo-hter was "too cute fur him." "Bill air 
too darn *cute hisse'f ter stomach his wimmin folks 
knowin' as much as he do,'' they said. 

Be that as it may, certain it is that of late since 
Teague had taken to consorting with men who were 
sometimes fouud doing deeds not the most irreproach- 
able, there had seemed to spiing up a kind of antag- 
onism between him and his daughter. Her clear blue 
eyes seemed to pierce him through and through, and 
it did not please him. 

" It air better ter be up early than late, I'm 
thinkin'," she said now, watching his heavy, slouching 
figure, as he led the foam-flecked sorrel through the 
little creaking gate. 

The noise disturbed a rooster that had been sur- 



26 

prised into tardiness by the belated daylight, and the 
big bird stretehed his damp wings np overhead in the 
spreading chestnut, his shrill voice echoing loudly on 
the mountain side. The awakened calf lifted np his 
young voice pleadingly, and the mother mooed back 
coming consolation from the under-brush below; hens, 
noisy with their infant broods clucked and peeped in 
the wet grass, busy Avith the work of living. The 
day was begun, and Licia turned to its customary 
duties. 

When she went into the house, Granny was already 
up and in her corner by the hearth. Penny Shackle- 
ford was laying the table, the dishes clattering noisily 
in her nimble fingers. Upon a low stool before the 
blazing fire Mrs. Teague sat, looking now and then at 
the crusty pones of corn-bread that crisped and 
browned in the oven before her, or turning the slices 
of odorous bacon that writhed and sputtered in their 
exuberant grease in the skillet on the coals. 

^' The Fort up ter Tracy burn yistiddy," said 
Teague, by and by. He had poured his smoking 
coifee into the saucer, and now stooped forward to 
blow upon it. 

" We'uns viewed it," said Penny Shackleford, who 
was always ready to talk, even to her taciturn brother- 
in-law. " We went up ter the cVarin^, time we seen the 
smoke, er skinnin' t'hough the underbresh like cata- 
mounts, an' every step, I fetched a scream." 

In the mind of the nimble Penny there seemed to 
belong some peculiar merit in the '' fetching" of this 
scream of hers, for she will tell about it with evident 
relish to this day. 



27 



''The old 'un had a vision the night afore/' said 
Mrs. Teagne in a subdued whisper, glancing over her 
shoulder at the dozing old woman. '' She 'lowed as 
how evil would come ter them as lighted the fire." 

Teague threw up his head, and looked across the 
room sharply at the silent, drowsing old woman. 
'' The old \m air 'cute," he said, after a pause, as he 
resumed his eating, " but she don't sense everything. 
We'uns war too clost pressed : 'twar agin natur' ter 
s'pose we\l stan' ever'thiug. What with capital er 
grindiu' an' er squeezin' an' the convicts er doin' mo' 
an' mo' ever' year we'uns was bleeged ter turn. It 
air agin' natur' fur capital ter git ever'thing an' labor 
nothin'." 

Just what Mrs. Teague comprehended bv all this 
I shall not venture to say, but it seems probable that 
she conceived within the inner recesses of her uncon- 
voluted brain the absorbing idea that Capital was a 
hard-fisted individual whose antics at the best of times 
was not to be depended upon, for she said quite calmly : 
"S'posin' Capital was ter inform, an' turn the law 
on the miners.'' 

"Inform an' turn the law?" said Teague, with 
an unpleasant laugl). ''Things have got past the 
law. Troops fum Nashville an' Chattanoogv come 
up las' night. Happen they'll fin' the mountings none 
so easy ter level. Them as sent trundle-bed soljers 
to molest hill men mebbe'll live ter see naught but 
the leavin's uv 'em some'ars in the mountings onsus- 
pected." ^ 

Licia looked up quickly as her father pushed his 
chair from the table, and left the house. Through 



28 



the open door-way ^he watched him bus. y makmg 
preparations for departure, and waited tdl the raw- 
boned sorrel disai)peared with hnu over tne r.dge. 



CHAPTER VI. 



The early sun was still low in the eastern sky when 
with quiok/free step Licia swung herself down the 
; ope that I'ed to the gorge beneath the R.ft ndge^ 

\bove her head great gnarled oaks, scarred w.th 
the storm of years, stretched their scraggy h™";'''^^' 
and giant chestnuts spread their l>,g leaves and shook 
their full green burrs. The sunlight stole through 
the branches of the red-bud, an,l showed now and then 
n some sheltered corner a belated rhododendron 
flower, fresh and sweet. Blackberry vines with then 
beaded fruit and starry-wliite blossoms tangled the 
way, and on either side a glory of golden-rod and 
iron-weed waved their yellow and P"'t1« pl"™;^ " 
perpetual defiance. Tiny orchids shot up ever and 
^iion ; little " monkey-flowers " with queer ^q"'"*-/- 
peeped up from the wet grass. Everywhere slim- 
recked sun-flowers held aloft their black heads, gold- 
en-crowned and glorious, and ferns sent their toothed 
fror.ds or trailed in g^^cefnl maiden '-•--•J^;,^ 
moss-covered stones. The very air was «weet with 
the breath of flower-laden morn, and now and hen 

from some shaded ledge, the « f^'-tl<='l,.l[^^<^^^^''?t 
down their hoarded moisture shower-hke as L c.a 
passed, while small wild fowls, shy and full-throated, 
made melody in the tree-tops. 



29 

How sweet it all was ! Yet the girl passed through 
like one in a dream, the fear in her heart growing 
more and more as she came nearer and nearer to the 
^' haunts' groun." 

When at length she had climbed up under the 
ledge, she stood upon the jutting rocks, awed and 
fearful. About the Rift's moutli there were tracks 
in the loose earth, and on the damp grass, but within, 
as she peered over, all was dark and still. Still it 
seemed, but not quite silent. Was it only the sigh- 
ing of the wind through the fern-fronds, or did she 
hear the wraiths moaning in the darkness below? 

Following the line of the cleft, Licia came to the 
cliff^s edge, and kneeling down and clinging to the 
jutting stones and springing shrubs, she scrambled 
over to a narrow ledge or shelf, six or eight feet below. 
Pressing close to the rocks, and still clinging to the 
branches she might look straight into the Rift's per- 
pendicular opening. Hers must have been, at best, a 
dangerous foothold ; but it seemed that some higher 
sense, that w^as neither instinct nor reason, guided her. 
Meanwhile, the great w^hite sun had swung round over 
the hilltops, and now there shot from it one long, 
narrow beam that pierced the Rift's darkness, dancing 
and quivering on the rough stones and through the 
waving ferns till it show^ed there within the cavern- 
ous depths, crushed and broken Avith its fall, the poor 
bruised body of a man. The sun beam kissed into 
gold the loose curls that had escaped from the little 
soldier's cap, and shone pityfully upon the wide vis- 
ionless eyes. Without at the Rift's mouth, the girl 
felt the wild beating of her hopeless heart and saw the 



30 

light go out of her life." It was thus that Dan had 
came back to her. 

Though Granny McDermot did not live to see the 
fulfillment of her prophecy, Bill Teague and Aaron 
Bennet have expiated with their own lives the crime 
of the Rift ridge, and the law is satisfied : but across 
the gorge, at the old Levan cabin where the mist is 
white on the mountains, two women, weary and sad- 
eyed, tell out their desolate days, united by the kin- 
ship of a common love and a common grief. 




CH^ 



31 



A Presidential Appointment. 



^^ifT was a pleasant February morDiDg, the twittering 
"Si of the birds on the pavement and in the big cot- 
^ tonwood trees making it seem quite gladsome 
without, and, by and by, the Judge began to feel 
the general stuffiness of the close office, and pulled 
his chair a little jerkily across the floor to the open 
window. He had a book in his hand, and held its 
pages open till he was seated. It was the "Blue 
Book,'' containing the list of Presidential appoint- 
ments, which he seemed to be perusing so earnestly, 
holding it off at arm's length and running his finger 
along to note the salary attached to each office, now 
and then, perhaps a little unconsciously, marking one 
with his thumb nail. He paused a moment to turn 
over a leaf, and glanced out through the open window, 
peering over his glasses for a distant view. The street 
below was a quiet one, and the figure of a tall, spare 
man in a closely-buttoned cutaway coat, with a high 
silk hat and dangling cane, was a conspicuous one in 
comparison to the few leisurely going passers-by in sim- 
ple morning attire. 



3-2 

^^ Yes, it is Everett/^ said the Judge to himself as 
the well-dressed man drew nearer, and he shut the 
book a little hastily and went across the room to put 
it on the table. He was still standing when the silk 
hat appeared up his stairway, and he called out quite 
cheerily : 

"Good morning, Everett." 

"Ah, as busy as ever, I see, Judge," said the man, 
shaking hands a little obseqiously. " I liardly hoped 
to find you down so early." 

"Why it's nine o'clock," said the Judge, pulling 
out his watch. "T have been down for an hour. I 
think you are the early bird ; a thriving young Con- 
gressman like you has no need to look out for the pro- 
verbial worm. You ought to leave that for us old 
fellows who are being laid on the shelf." 

" O, well now, that is an idea," said the Congress- 
man cheerfully, "but I think I ought to know how 
much likelihood there is of vour being laid on the 
shelf" 

The Judge laughed a little nervously at this kindly 
disclaimer, and the Congressman went on : 

"Yes, I came out a little early this morning. I 
have only a few more days at home, and there's a good 
deal to be done. Thank you for taking care of this 
for me," and he picked up the book the Judge had 
put down so hastily. 

"Quite a number of my kindly constituents are 
to call on me this morning, and I'm afraid I shall 
have a difficulty in ' placing' some of them." 

He seemed quite elated at his own mild joke, and 
the Judge laughed tentatively. 



33 

''Yes, sir," the Congressman continued, " when a 
man with a'osolutely no political record, a man who 
has been of no more use to his party than the gamin 
is to the procession which he follows thro' the streets 
— when such a man I say, comes and asks for a fat 
office, it is nothing more nor less than unadulterated 
gall, and shows us the mighty wrong side of a cam- 
paign victory." He was not looking at the Judge as 
he spoke, and seemed quite carried away by his own 
enthusiasm. " Now, there are men, deserving, honor- 
able men, who have upheld the party and kept its 
standard waving above the slime of degradation, men 
whom we would be glad to reward" — he spoke quite 
naturally — '' and glad to have to the front now, for, I 
tell you, we want to keep our forces well mustered, 
we want to keep our posts well guarded. This is our 
deal now, fair and square, and we do not want to play 
a losing game." He was not on ''the floor" and 
seemed a little reckless of his metaphors. 

"The President is a mighty long-headed man, 
but the new bills are going to prove hard nuts to 
crack." 

Everett spoke rapidly, but his quick eye had been 
glancing round the room, meanwhile taking in all its 
details. 

There were holes in the matting on the floor, and 
dust on the books and the shelves and the tables. It 
had not been so once; it had not been so when he, a 
poor clerk in a grocer's store, had come at odd 
moments to borrow books of the Judge, and get him 
to explain difficult passages of Blackstone. He 
thought of it all now, and of how prosperous and 



34 

thriving the Judge was then, and how kindly and 
gracious Avithal. He thought of his own first case, 
which the Judge had given him, and of his maiden 
speech which the Judge had coached him for; he 
remembered liow he had brought down the laughter 
of the Court by beginning ^' Mr. Speaker,^' instead of 
'^Gentlemen of the Jury,'' and how the Judge had 
patted him on the back when it was over and told him 
his lapsus lingucv. was a good sign, and that some day 
he would be saying ^^ Mr. Speaker" in earnest from 
the floor. Yes, he remembered it all now, and it had 
come true for him — but the Judge? He felt sorry he 
had not kept up with him during the years he had 
been in Washington; perhaps he was being laid on 
the shelf. To be sure he looked old and worn. 

The Congressman was thinking of all this while 
he had been speaking, and his finger kept running- 
over the leaves of the book which he held in his 
hand. He snapped the covers together nervously. 

" I tell you what. Judge," he said, " I wish you 
wanted an appointment and you'd let me get one for 
you. IM like to wipe out some old scores with you in 
that way.'' 

The Judge's eyes fell, and he flecked a speck of 
dust from his worn coat-sleeve before he replied. 
There was a little nervousness in his manner, but his 
words were quite direct. 

^' Thank you, Everett," he said simply, " I have 
been thinking I would like a good quiet place." 

The Congressman's intentions were the best, but 
the Judge's reply seemed to stagger him for a 
moment. 



35 

He pressed his lips together, hardening his pleas- 
ant face, but his words were kindly. 

" Well, now, I'm sure Vm glad to hear it. Judge," 
he said, '^and I think we will have no difficulty in 
arranging it.'' 

He sat down on the straight office chair, pressing 
his thin knees close together, and leaning his slender 
body forward, resting his elbows on the table. 

'' If you'll just go through this list with me," he 
went on, and there was a business-like brusqueness in 
his tone, ^Sve might see what there is left." 

He turned to the list of first-class appointments, 
running his bony finger down the line and telling off 
names as he went. 

" There's England now, that's for Massachusetts, 
of course; and France, Illinois will get that, and so 
on. No, there's nothing there. Let me see, how'd 
you like a consulate? Some pretty good places, 
light work, enough salary, you know. Here, how's 
this ? That's not bad. Got any choice of place, 
Judge?" 

" Well, I don't know; it just came into my head 
a moment before you came up. I think on a venture, 
I should say that I wanted a mild climate," said the 
Judge, a little vaguely. 

" Yes, of course," continued the Congressman, 
still following the route of his finger. ^' Now there's 
Mexico, or Peru, or Bolivia. Let me see, some good 
places on the other side, in Italy perhaps, or Ireland, 
that's pretty good. I wish I'd known about this 
thing sooner ; I've promised so many of the places. 
But here, now, holding the book to the Judge, '' how's 



36 

this? Right smart salary, ain't it? Suppose we see 
what we can do with that." 

He arose as he spoke, taking the Judge's assent 
for granted, but his graeiousness returned as he got 
upon his feet and looked down at the old man beside 
him. 

He gave a very hearty handshake, saying : " Now, 
Judge, I want you to count upon my doing everything 
possible in this matter, and, believe me, it will give 
me great pleasure. We'll send in a perfect reveille of 
letters and so on. Of course, everything will have to 
pass through the senior Senator's hands ; but you 
know him, don't you? Yes; I thought so. Well, I 
think we may count upon him in this matter, and, at 
any rate, you may upon me.'' 

The Congressman seemed willing and sincere 
enough, but the thing had not passed off just accord- 
ing to the Judge's desire. Accustomed as he was to 
granting favors, he was new to the business of asking 
them, and the unwonted effort galled him. He hoped 
the thing would not be talked about until it was quite 
settled, and it made him wince a few mornings later, 
when the paper contained the announcement that 
"Judge Acton was prominently spoken of for an im- 
portant foreign post." 

His friends were enthusiastic ; the several local 
papers were exuberant in their laudation. 

One thing about it, they said, was that the Judge's 
record did not have to be looked up. This was be- 
cause everybody knew it; everybody knew his private 
character to be one of unparalleled purity, his private 
life to be one of unostentatious philanthropy. His 



37 

public career was unimpeachable ; every one who 
knew anything of the political history of the State 
was familiar with the Judge's staunch adherence to 
party lines, and party principles. So tlie community 
discussed it, were elated and felt that the matter was 
settled. The Board of Trade, it is true, sent a testi- 
monial in the Judge's behalf, not tiiat (hey felt that it 
was needed at all, but just by way of showing their 
appreciation of the choice which they felt assured 
would be made. Thus summarily are many weighty 
matters settled by those who have no finger in the 
governmental pie. Numerous friends in other States 
wrote to the Judge, giving him hearty and previous 
congratulations, telling him that they had written to 
their various Senators, each one of whom it was always 
said, ^' had the ear of the President,'' giving the 
Judge what they usually called " a rouser.'' Thus it 
seemed that so far as might be seen all was done that 
could be, and there was nothing left but to await the 
grinding of the mill of the gods. 

The person who said least and doubtless thought 
most about the Judge's appointment was Ruth. 

When Mrs. Acton looked up from her knitting to 
say : ^^ Ruth, since your father has asked for the ap- 
pointment, I want him to get it." That worthy lady 
had, then and there, as she would have expressed it, 
^' said her say." 

Mrs. Acton was one who always spoke with re- 
serves ; reserves that grew by harboring, and were, 
invariably, ready for emergencies. 

So Ruth had not discussed the matter with her 
mother. She simply awaited an emergency, hoping 



38 



one would come to break down her reserves. She 
appreciated the sensitiveness her father might feel 
while the matter was still in doubt, and went out of 
her way to respect it. ,> , • i 

But as I have intimated, she did a deal of think- 
ing, for Ruth was a young woman possessed of aspi- 
rations, of that peculiar kind of restlessness ^yhich 
usually passes muster under the name of ambition, 
and one of her innermost desires had been to get away 
from the narrow confines of the small city, wherein 
she had passed almost her only life, and, added to this, 
was an over-weening desire to go abroad. 

Now that there was a probability of this, she was 
forced to content herself with only thinking of her 
desire, and strengthened her hope with her mother^s 
decision that, since her father had asked for a place, 
she wanted him to get it. 

Singularly enough, the only person whom she felt 
inclined to talk to about it was John— John Hume— - 
and now he was gone, she knew not where, and it did 
not make things easier for her to reflect that she had 
herself been the cause of his going. But with all of 
her reflections she could not bring herself to think it 
was anything but stupid of John to go off as he had 
done. 'Hadn't he been asking her to marry him once 
a year ever since she could remember, and hadn't she 
always given him the same answer ? 

And now, it did seem too utterly stupid of him to 
say that, since she w^as older he supposed she knew 
her own mind and that he would go away and not 
trouble her any more. 

Just as tho' she hadn't known her own mind all 
along. 



39 

John was a deal too masterful, and, to be sure, she 
was not sorry she had said " no '' to him, but she 
couldn't help wishing he hadn^t gotten in a huff and 
gone off like that to nobody knew where, just at a time 
when she most wanted him. Ruth kept thinking of 
this after she had looked up her Meistersehaff and set 
to studying in case she had to go abroad ; perhaps 
that's the reason she made so little progress with her 
grammar. 

CHAPTER II. 

It was one of those blustering, windy nights 
toward the middle of March when John Hume got 
home. Just why John had decided to shut up his 
Washington apartments sooner than was necessary 
and to run down home for a brief visit he did not 
quite acknowledge to himself, but merely said that he 
would like a last glimpse of the old place to carry 
away with him, to remember when he was so far away 
and so long gone. There was no one to say good-by 
to — no one except Ruth, and he should not see her, 
probably. 

He was thinking of all this the night he got home, 
and was walking up from the station to his old quar- 
ters. He calculated that none of the boys would 
have come in at that hour, and that he could look up 
a few papers that he wanted, and have a good, quiet, 
cozy time of it. He knew that Jessup, his old room- 
mate, would have left plenty of coals in the grate, 
and he felt quite gratified that a comfortable glow 
stole out beneath the door to greet him as he mounted 
the dusty stairway. 

4 



40 

Everything was just as he had expected to find it; 
even his individual post-box on the door was full ot 
things Jessup had neglected to send. He took tliem 
out, the bundles of newspapers and a few letters, car- 
rying them in with him and dumping them down on 
the table along with his grip. ^ ,, , 

Within, too, all seemed quite as of old, but some- 
how he couldn't help feeling sorry, after all, that he 
hadn't wired Jessup he was coming. The little fel- 
low's cheerfulness would have made his home-coming 
happier, his last glimpse of the old place brighter. 
He had a passing thought of going out to look the 
boys up, but his trip had been a fatiguing one, so he 
emptied Jessup's tea-kettle and got the cinders and 
dust from his face and hands, found his own big 
slippers in their accustomed corner, and drew up a 
chair to the table, stretching his long limbs to the 
fire's cheerful warmth. 

It was nice to be at home, and he fell to wonder- 
ing if, after all, he should see Ruth. Perhaps he 
would meet iier in the street, as a thousand times he 
had thought of meeting her while he was gone, with 
the wind rumpling her loose curls, and the dear look 
in her bright eyes, and the smile on her sweet lips. 
He had thought of her so often, and the pain of it all 
was still in his heart ; what would it be when he was 
gone so far away? 

He brushed his hands across his eyes as if to shut 
out a vision, and picking up one of the dusty papers 
he had brought in, he began to open it listlessly. The 
first thing that caught his eye was Judge Acton's name 
at the head of a column,' and, like one awakening 



41 

from a dream, he read of his probable appoiutment. 
He had heard nothing of it and he read the whole 
thing twice over before lie seemed to understand, then, 
blowing a long, low, whistle he threw the paper down 
beside him on the floor. 

Jessnp's step was heard mounting the stair, and in 
a moment the little fellow burst iii, fairly kissing 
Hume in the exuberance of his delight at seeing him. 

" Why didn't you let a man know you were com- 
ing?'' he said, frisking about the roon/in his nervous 
little way. "I'd have had the boys in to glorify. 
Why didn't you write to a fellow, anyhow? Why, 
you had me here pijiing my young life away, believ- 
ing you had gone to that nether region vou easuallv 
mentioned the night you flew off like a shot out of a 
shovel, to the Lord-knows-where. 8av, whv didn't 
you write?" 

" Write ? " said Hume. " You are a great one to 
talk about writing; whv in the mischief didn't vou 
write ? " 

''I? WHiy I had nothing to write," said Jessup 
helplessly. ' 

'' Oh,^ you didn't ? Well why didn't you send the 
papers?" said Hume, picking up the one at his feet. 

^' Oh, come now, but that is a good one, "said Jes- 
sup, going ofl* in a fit of laughter. " Where out of 
the world have you been that you wanted to see our 
papers? Did you want to know what we thought of 
the Toronto question ? Did you want to see us settle 
the free art bill with one stroke of our mighty pen? 
Or did you want to know that Bill Jones was adding 
a new coat of paint to his palatial residence, that the 



42 

hoaorable Mayor was out again after a })r«)tracted spr — 
beg pardon — illness, that our old friend John Smith 
from Hog Thief Point, was in town yesterday, and, 
last, but not least, that there are no flies on '^ — 

'' Hush, Jessup, ean't you?" said Hume, breaking 
in a littU^ sharply. '' I think you might have written 
me about — Judge Acton's app(untment, for instance." 

"Phew!'^ said Jessup, ''sits the wind in that 
quarter yet? I didn't know you would feel interested, 
as all was over twixt you and Ruth." Hume winced. 

'' Besides," Jessup went on, " he hasn't got it yet, 
and probably never will. Kissing goes by favor, and 
things seem to be moving slowly in Washington." 

'' Do you suppose such a man as Judge Acton 
wouldn't gat what he asked for?" demanded Hume. 

'' I've seen as good men as he refused what they 
asked for," said the little fellow significantly. 

" Stop that, Jessup," said Hume, doggedly. " You 
know I wasn't worthy to fasten lier shoe latchet." 

*' Oh, I know," answered the loyal little man, look- 
ing up at his big friend, '' you're not worth wiping up 
the floor with. If you were, I'd do it, sir, I'd do it." 

''Well, well, we shall make it all right, Jessup, old 
boy," said Hume, slipping ofl^ his slipper and throw- 
ing one arm caressingly about the little fellow's 
shoulders. 

"Would you mind sitting up for me a bit? I 
shall not be gone long, and I'll get you to call me 
early in the morning, please, Jess ; I've got to go to 
Washington." 

" You have, have you ? What did you come for?" 

" To see you, Jessup, of course," broke in Hume, 



43 

softly, but the little fellow didii^t feign to notice the 
interruption. 

"What did you come for? A chunk of fire? 
Well, I'll ^fire' you early enough in the morning, be 
sure/' ^ 

Hume ran doAvn stairs and hurried up the street to 
the telegraph office in a vague kind of way, feeling 
that he could thus help along on its journey the mes- 
sage he was going to send. He picked up a blank, 
addressed it to his Senior Senator at Washington, fill- 
ing it in without counting the words. 

When he got back home he was very gentle with 
little Jessup, who had refilled the cup of tea for him 
in the old way. 

CHAPTER III. 

_ It had been arranged that the Congressman was to 
give a reception in honor of Judge Acton's departure 
when the family stopped in Washington on their way 
to JNew York whence they were to sail. It was a very 
swell affair, of course, when it came off, and next to 
the Congressman's beautiful wife, Ruth was quite the 
prettiest thing there, and she was having a perfectly 
lovely time. or j 

At least slie kept telling herself over and over 
again that she was enjoying the cram and the rush, 
the meeting so many charming people, but she was 
haunted by the dreadful thought that she was going 
to break down in the midst of it all and cry. There 
was a man standing with his back to her just behind 
a group of palms ; he had been there a lon^ time and 



44 

he reminded her of John. If only it were John she 
would feel better; then, after a while, she eould see 
him and tell him good -by. 

The Congressman himself w^as talking to her, and 
when he stopped she thought she had better thank 
him for having gotten the appointment for her father. 
Somehow the echo of her words sounded very insin- 
cere, and looking u|) at him a little pleadingly, she 
said : '^ Indeed, I am very grateful to you, and I know 
it was all owing to you that the phiee was given father, 
the Senator was very lagging." 

The Congressman began to say something in reply, 
but she did not hear what it was. The man behind 
the palms had moved, and — y<'s, it was John, and he 
was coming to her; it had been so long since she saw 
him, and she wanted to tell him good-by. No, he 
was going the other way ; but surely he had seen her. 
What could it mean? For John Hume\s kind, gray 
eyes looked full into hers for a brief second, he bent 
his head a little stiffly and was gone. 

The Congressman stopj)ed short in what lie was 
saying, glanced over his shoulder at Hume's retreating 
figure, and wondered if Ruth was quite the flirt she 
seemed. When he turned to look at her again, some- 
thing in the girl's downcast face struck him. 

'^ There seems to be a little lull just now," he said, 
bending to offer his arm, '^ and I'm afraid I shall not 
have another opportunity to show you my orchids. 
Will you let me take you now? 

The girl slipped her hand through his arm grate- 
fully, glad to escape the glare of lights upon her 
burning face and sank back well into the shadow 



45 

of the vines in a quiet corner where he had found her 
a seat. 

" Well, Miss Aeton/' he said, after a little, " Fm 
afraid I can't legitimately lay claim to all the thanks you 
were so gracious as to offer me a while ago. Of course 
you know, I wanted to do what I could for your father, 
but when I put the matter to the Senator, he told me 
he had already promised the place to — '^ the Con- 
gressman paused a moment, " to — er — someone else. 
This particular some one else happened to be a young 
fellow who was anxious to go to the antipodes, if pos- 
sible, on some pretext or another, just then, and 
the Senator was going to give him all his influ- 
ence. Had known the young man's father, you know, 
and that sort of thing, and was disposed to let the fel- 
low have anything he wanted, and he had settled upon 
the very place the Judge had thought of. So that's 
the state of affairs I found when I got here. Well, 
perhaps, I don't know exactly where the hitch was, 
but at the last minute — the very day before the ap- 
pointment was to be made, in fact — the young fellow 
called off, said he didn't want it, and it was given to 
your father. So, you see, it is to him, the young man, 
that your thanks are due." 

'' Who is he ? What is his name ? " asked Ruth, 
breathlessly. 

'^ Hume, you know, John Hume," said the Con- 
gressman, feeling that his plot had wound up a little 
tamely, perhaps, after all. 

" Oh ! Oh ! " said Ruth, covering her face with 
her hands and bowing her head upon the flower- 
decked stand before her. 



46 

She did not look up when the Congressman went 
out, closing the door softly behind him. A moment 
later, with an ice in his hand, he met Hume in the 
hall. 

" Would you mind taking this into the conserva- 
tory and doing the gallant in my stead ? I^m busy/' 
he said, hurrying on as he put the plate into the young 
man's hand. 

Perhaps John didn't suspect anything, perhaps he 
hoped everything. At all events, when he opened 
the door and found Ruth, with her head still bowed 
upon the table, he put one of his big palms ovei; her 
little hand and called to her gently. 

" Oh, John ! " she cried, springing up, *' to think 
of your having done that! Of your having given 
up your place to father, and then letting us go on and 
never have a chance to say a word to you about it ! 
Never mind now, I know all about it, the Congress- 
man has told me part, and I guessed the rest. And 
you were going to let us go away without even saying 
good-by to you. Oh, John ! " 

" Good-bv," said John. " Is that all vou wanted 
to say, Ruth ? " 

The tears were still standing in her gladsome eyes, 
and she hung her head so low that her words came 
only in a whisper, but he heard. 

"No, that isn't quite all, for I love you, John." 



47 



How Hank and His Folks 
Saw the Show. 



^^^ANK pulled his horses close to the sidewalk and 
Ji^ stood up in the wagon, looking wistfully at the 
^ big bills which the man was busily pasting to 
the long stretch of high wall by the cotton-yard. 

" Gwine to be a show in town?'' he asked good- 
naturedly. 

^' Yes, sir/' said the man with the paste-pot, 
glancing carelessly over his shoulder. 

^^ Gwine to be a big 'un, ain't it ? " Hank went on. 

'^ Biggest you ever saw," said the man giving a 
vigorous sweep of the brush. 

Hank grinned down on the man's broad back 
complacently, pushed his dirty white hat up on his 
head, and said : 

" 'Taint wuth your while to put them words in the 
paper 'bout your show, mister. It wouldn't be fur out 
er sight at that rate, certain, beein's how I ain't never 
saw a show." 

"Say you haven't?" It was the man's turn to 



48 

grin now, and he did so broadly. ^' Well, my friend, 
you ought to see this one.'^ 

" Well, I'm blest ef I warn't stud'in' 'bout that 
when I seen you stickin' them pitchers up. I jess 
'lowed as how maybe I'd come an' fetch Molly an' 
the chillun. Th' ain't nair one er my folks ever seen 
er show." 

He gathered up the reins in one hand and sat 
down, leaning over the wagon-body in a confidential 
kind of way. 

"Yes, I's jess stud'in' 'bout bringin' the folks in 
to this here show, but you know how 'tis. Times is 
plum powerful liard, an' crops is short ever'where." 

"O, it won't cost much,"' said the man. ^^ You 
just scratch around and pick up a few dimes and come 
along and bring Molly and the children." 

^' I'm blest ef I don't do it, mister," said Hank 
with a burst of enthusiasm. '' What time'd you say 
the show'd be here?" 

"On the twelfth." 

''The twelfth. That's nex' Saddy week, ain't 
it?" said Hank musingly. "Well, now, that's the 
very day I's aimin' to come in with the cotton any- 
how, so I'm blest ef I don't put Molly an' the chillun 
in the wagin too, an' haul 'em in to the show\" 

" That's right," said the man, gathering up his pots 
and bills. 

" Yes, sir, we'll be on han' an' don't you forgit it. 
Say, you may jess count on me an' Molly an' the 
chillun," Hank called over his shoulder. 

He took a last lingering look at the gorgeous pic- 
tures, before he turned his horses' heads down the 



49 

dusty street which led to the bridge across the creek. 
Somehow he felt quite joyous as he whipped up the 
poor tough little ponies, their shoes clinking noisily 
against the stones, and the loose cotton-ties in the big 
wagon rattling a cheerful accompaniment. 

'^ Gwiue to be a circus in town, Molly/' said Hank, 
when he got home and she had come out to see him 
unhitch, leaning lazily against the fence with the baby 
in her arms. 

"■ You don't say ! " she ejaculated. 

'* Yes," he went on with growing enthusiasm, 
" gwine to be a circus, an' a big 'un, too. A feller 
was tellin' me. An' what you reckon I'm a min' to 
do, Molly?" 

'^ Don't know. Hank," she said a little tentatively. 

"Guess, oP 'oman," he said, hilariously, flipping 
at the baby with the end of the bridle reins. 

" Reckon you aim to go to tlie show, don't you 
Hank ?" she asked wistfully, when his back was 
turned as he stooped to unhitch a strap. 

" That's what, ol' 'oman,'' he said joyously, 
" That's jess what, but there's mo' to it, an' you an^ 
the chillun better be slickin' yourse'ves up for I aim 
to take you all along too." 

"To the circus?" she asked breathlessly. 

" Yes, to the circus," Hank answered with mani- 
fest pride in his decision. " I studied it all out when 
I's comin' home. You see, it's to be nex' Saddy 
week, an' I's aimin' to take the cotton in that day 
anyhow, so it couldn't a hit handier. Now you an' 
the chillun jess git ready an' we'll g'long an^ have a 
look at all them things I seen in the pitchers. Might's 



50 

well do it, you know. Markham will be owin' us 
some on the cotton, an' I speck you want to do a little 
tradin' anyhow. So we- 11 jess go, that's what." 

Now, Hank and his wife were simple folk, belong- 
ing to that extensive class of individuals who are 
usually spoken of as ^^ having a hard time of it." If 
this meant that no matter how favorable the season 
elsewhere. Hank's little rocky hillside ranch was 
sure to have too much or too little rain; it it meant 
that his corn and cotton and potatoes somehow or 
other as he said, '^ never seemed to hit;" if it meant 
that his horses and cows were always underfed, that 
Molly was put to it to keep her constantly-increasing 
and ever-stretching brood in the merest suspicion of 
a supply of clothes, that her chickens were in a 
chronic state of disease, being bandied about busily 
between cholera and the pips from one year's end to 
the other; that her housework was never finished by 
nightfall and always had to be left over for next day: 
if all this meant 'Miaving a hard time" then Hank 
and Molly certainly had it. The only thing that grew 
and prospered on the whole stoney little place were 
the children. As Molly's neighbors said of her, ^^ she 
sholy seem to have good luck with the young ones." 
There were all ages and sizes of them, as many as 
could crowd in between Sim, a lank lad of ten, and 
little Moll, the baby girl. 

But in spite of the hard times, it was quite a joy- 
ous party that set out to the circus when Saturday 
came, for it takes more than short crops and long 
drouths to down an improvident spirit. From their 
high perch on the cotton bales beneath the pent-house 
of the overstretched wagon-sheet, the children poked 



51 

their tow-heads, anon shouting out in happy young 
voices, or gurgling a suppressed giggle at the un- 
wonted excitement. Hank chirruped cheerily to the 
ponies, his sunburnt face beaming with goodnatured 
anticipations, and by his side, with the baby in her 
arms, sat Molly, resplendent in her faded red calico 
and white sun bonnet. 

It was still quite early when they got to town and 
Hank drove first to the cotton-yard and dumped his 
two precious bales out among the many broAvn-sacked 
bundles which lay there in careless array, their ple- 
thoric sides bursting with fleecy whiteness. 

" V\\ jess drive ^roun to the square, Molly,'^ he 
said, " an' you and the chillun can set there in the 
wagin 'tell I see Mark ham an' have a settle?7ien^. 
Then I'll come fur you an' we'll see the show, and 
ever'thing that's gwine. We ain't aimin' to do no 
half-way business on this here circus, air we Sim? 
You bet, we'll jess natchelly do the thing up right. 
I ain't no slouch when it comes to a show, no how, ef 
I ain't never been to one." 

Hank's great good-nature must have been con- 
tagious, for Markham beamed upon him benignantly, 
and shook his hand as cordially as if his meagre two 
bales had been multiplied by a hundred. 

" Come in to the show, did you Hank ? " he asked, 
rubbing his hands together cheerfully, and smiling up 
into Hank's face. 

" Yes," said Hank, broadly. ^' 'Lowed maybe 
times warn't so hard that a feller couldn't afford a 
little fun. Never made nothin' wuth layin' by nohow, 
an' might's well git the good er what there is, that's 
what I say. But I brought the cotton along, an' I'd 



52 

like to have a settlement with you right away ef you've 
got the time. You see, I brought Molly an' the 
chillun along too, an' they air settin' 'roun' yonder 
on the square waitin' fur mo to come back, an' I want 
to git there soon as 1 kin." 

^' Just itemise Hank's bill for me, please," said 
Markham to the bookkeeper as he and Hank passed 
through the office in the cotton-yard. 

'^ I'm glad you brought your cotton in to-day, 
Hank," he went on when the weighing and classing 
were over and they had come back into the office. 
" Tt jumped u]) a point yesterday. 

''You don't say!" said Hank, feeling vaguely 
that whatever a "point" might be it meant quite an 
unlimited pinnacle to his pile of balance due. In it 
he saw a pair of boots for Sim, a dress for Molly 
and — 

But Markham interrupted liis vision. 

'' Here you are Hank, he said, taking up the long 
sheet from the bookkeeper's desk. 

Hank's eyes followed Markham's finger slowly 
but uncomprehendingly down the long column of 
figures, and his heart gave a big jump at the end, 
when he heard still in the same cheery voice : 

" ^Yell, we'll credit you by the cotton to-day, and 
you see, that puts you pretty nearly square. You 
will owe us only eight dollars and fifty cents, and I 
can carry that till you can scrape up a few eggs and 
chickens for Christmas, maybe." 

But Hank's ears were full. " I owe you eight 
dollars an' a ha'f?" he said breathlessly; "Why, 
Lord man, ain't there. nothin' comin' to me?" 

Markham looked up kindly over his glasses, but 



53 

the blow had been too great. Hank dropped down 
into a chair, covering his face with his hands. 

''Good Lord!" he went on helpk\ssly. "The 
cotton^s ever'thing I\'e got in the worl' ! I knowed 
there wouldn't be much comin' on it, but Vt^ aimin' 
to git Sim a pair er boots an' Molly a nevv dress 
among ^em ! Lord ! Lord ! An' you say there ain't 
nair cent comin' to me? An' Molly an' the chillun 
a-settin 'round yonder in the wagin waitin' fur me to 
come an' take 'em to the show! Do you mean I've 
got to go an' tell 'em I ain't got a cent in tlie worP, 
an' we'll jess have to hitch up an' go 'long back home? 
Lord ! Lord ! " and the big tears were trickling down 
his cheeks. 

The bookkeeper slid down from his stool, and 
went out softly, closing the door behind him. Mark- 
ham took off his glasses and wiped them slowly. He 
had been a poor man once, and he knew how heavily 
some things bear upon simple folk, even those who 
are accustomed to " havino: a hard time." 

'^ Well, well," he said kindly, running his hand in 
his pocket, " I reckon times are harder with you than 
they are with me, and you'd better let us call things 
square, and take this five dollar bill and go and get 
Molly and the children. It is almost time for the 
show." 

Hank was no beggar, however used he was to hard 
times, but he had no power to compass the disap- 
pointment that would be waiting for him if he refused 
Markham's offer; but it was but a poor spiritless 
slouching figure that went by and by to join the ex- 
pectant group in the wagon. He kept his fingers 
clasped on old Markham's bill in his pocket, and his 



54 

lips were tight pressed. But there was no time for 
explanations. Out tumbled the little towheads by 
twos and threes with Molly and the baby on top, for 
the music had already begun. 

Up the street and around the square, turning down 
by the baker\s shop came the procession, and oh ! oh ! 
was there ever anything grander to see ? the puffing, 
smoking, screaming calliope, the gorgeous equestri- 
ennes, the rattling, rumbling cages, the strange wild 
things peering out with hungry eyes, the ponder- 
ous elephants with long snouts — was there ever any- 
thing like it all? 

Never before to Hank and his folks surely, and is 
it any wonder that his drooping spirits revived and 
that along with the rest he gave himself up and 
followed in the wake of the steaming music across the 
creek and quite into the big tent itself? He gave up 
old Markham's bill at the door forg3tful that there 
went along with it his whole worldly wealth, and by 
and by when it was all over and the wagon rattled 
noisily out on the homeward road, Molly said with a 
burst of recalled consciousness when the little cabin 
appeared in sight : 

" Lor', Hank, we forgot the tradin' *' 

Hank ran his hand down into the pocket where 
Markham's money had been, but he heard only 
vaguely, for a vision of the clown in his wide trousers 
danced before his eyes and the sound of music was in 
his ears : 

" But we seen the show," he said softly. 




':Sieur Antoine and .Snow-white. 
Page 61. 



55 



Snow-white. 



CHAPTER I. 



W^OW very white she did look always, the dainty 
Jg^ little one of Pierre and Felice, with her golden 
^ hair and her blue, sweet eyes, as she played 
among the brown-skinned, dusky-locked children in 
the sunshine of the old quarter. And it is little 
wonder that they called her ^^ Snow-white,'^ the dainty 
sweet one, for very white she must have looked to 
Pierre that morning when he found her lying on the 
door-step, with the snowflakes all about her, and 
only her round, baby-blue eyes showing out of the 
whiteness. 

"■ See what Our Lady has sent us, Felice,'^ he 
said, taking the precious bundle in his big, brown 
hands, and carrying it in to his wife. ^' A little snow- 
white baby.'' 

Felice turned back the shawl, and brushed the 
snow-flakes from the baby's face, and there, sure 
enough, pinned to the little dress, was a card, and as 
Pierre bent down to see, he read, " For Pierre and 
Felice." 



56 

'^ There ! Did I not say ? '' he exclaimed joyously, 
'' it is for us that the Blessed Virgin has sent her." 

And together they knelt, holding the little one 
between them, and giving thanks for her who had 
been sent to oheer their eliildless home and fill their 
empty hearts. 

Only this they knew of the (coming of the little 
one, but, when they carried her to Pdre Martin for 
his blessing, the old priest remembered the slight, 
graceful women who knelt so long at Vespers the 
evening before, and who had, when the service was 
over, questioned him about the same Felice, the coif- 
feuse, and Pierre, her husband, who lived in the 
crumbling grey house beyond the church. He remem- 
bered too that the liand which dropped into his the 
heavv purse of gold, wore no ring upon its third finger, 
and *Pere Martin sighed as he h)oked into tiie baby's 
face, and murmured, '' Another Uimb for the fold." 

But he did not speak of what he remembered : 
instead, lie only tohl Pierre and Felice that he would 
himself go with them to the office of the old notaire 
on the corner where all could be arranged, and that 
the next day after Mass they might bring the child to 
be christened. 

And so they did, giving her the name of Snow- 
white. No other name would have suited her half so 
well. Snow-white she was when Pierre found her, 
and snow-white Felice always kept her. She was 
never too busy to put a few dainty tucks in baby's 
white slip, or to wash her face and brush her yellow 
curls. And Pierre never came up stairs now without 
stopping to wash his hands at the big tub down in 



57 

the court, so that he might not soil baby's dress when 
he took her in his arms, and he kissed her, oh, so 
gently, lest he should leave the impress of his lips on 
her's. Somehow, too, his step grew lighter and his 
laugh cheerier. Even down on the levee, and at the 
warehouse where he worked all day lifting and turn- 
ing the big cotton bales with his sharp hook, he would 
sometimes forget and laugh softly because of the little 
one at home. Felice's songs, too, grew gayer as she 
tripped about at her tidy house-work, and her coif- 
fures w^ere more elaborate and graceful than ever. 

'^ It makes a difference, is it not so, madanie?" 
she would say when she dressed the hair of a fond 
young mother, who, perhaps, sat the while gently 
swinging tlie cradle of her lirst-born, '^ it makes a 
difference that there is now a little heart for your big 
one to hold. I know, it is all changed with me now 
that the Blessed Virgin has sent us a little one. It 
makes nothing now that I must go up and down the 
stair, that I nuist bring the water from the cistern in 
the court, or that I must be forever crimping and 
curling and sticking in the pins." 

And it did indeed seem that all the household was 
changed. It was not a very great household to be 
sure, for besides Pierre and Felice, there were only 
Marta and Babette and 'Sieur Antoine in the little 
grey house. 

Marta lived on the first floor, and from her apart- 
ments there came always the pleasing odor of burnt 
sugar, for it was in her own little back room that she 
made the white and yellow ropes of candy that she sold 
upon the streets every day. What delight it was to 



58 

her when Siiow-wliite couhi sit idoiu; and h<jld in lier 
chubby fist a stick of the crisp candy, sucking it till 
it ran down her wrists and chin and upon her little 
dress in streams of linked sweetness. 

'^ It is by the reason that the little one likes it 
that I make this cream candy/' she would say to her 
customers, and so go her way with a lighter step and a. 
heavier purse because of the baby's coming. 

But it was Babette who took care of Snow-white 
when Felice must be away. Bal)ette was a blanchis- 
seuse, anci was always washing, washing, washing in 
the big tubs down in the court. When Snow-white 
was old enough and the days were mild, Babette 
would take her shawl, and spreading it out over the 
warm bricks, put the baby upon it, shading her little 
lace from the sun with one of Pierre's big straw hats 
hung up on a stick. The child grew to love Babette, 
with her broad, round face, and her plump, white 
arms ; grew to love the warjii court where there was 
so much suidight and always the splashing of water 
and the flapping ot snowy clothes on the line. 

And 'Sieur Antoine ? Ah, yes ; perhaps more 
than any one else 'Sieur Antoine came to love the 
little gift-child. At first he would only pause when 
he met Felice on the stair and inquire after the Ittle 
one, but, by and by, he stopped in on his way up to 
his room to see the baby, all clean and sweet and 
white tucked away in her little bed. 'Sieur Antoine 
spoke but little: his violin talked for him, he would 
say, and he was always sad and often hungry too, 
Pierre thought. So when Snow-white was able to 
climb the stair without fear of her falling, Felice 



59 

sometimes would send her up to 'Sieur Antoine's room 
Avith a slice of bread or a bit of meat that he might 
find it waiting for him when he comes. But better 
than all this to the old man was just to have the child 
curl up in the window- seat and listen as he played, his 
music full of memories. 

^'What is it makes me hurt here when you play, 
^Sieur Antonie?" the child would ask, putting her 
little hand over her heart, and standing close beside 
his knee with her eyes full of tears. '' Is music then 
so sad." 

'^ It is not music, little one," he would say, ^' it is 
life." It W'as the good P^re Martin himself who 
used to come for the child w4ien she was old enough to 
run about, and carry her Avith him to the church and 
to his own cozy little cottage behind with its vine-clad 
porch and its garden sweet Avith roses. He would 
pluck for her the heavy-headed buds that brushed her 
cheeks, and take her home with her apron full of 
fiow^ers, or her hands full of oranges from the tree 
beside his w indow. ^' May I not give the Virgin 
some of my flowers?" the child Avould say as she 
picked the finest to lay at Mary's feet w4ien they 
passed the church. 



CHAPTER II. 

Thus among the good friends the little one grew 
and prospered, brightening the house and the square 
and the street with her presence. There was much 
to make her happy too ; her good friends and the sun- 



60 

shine and the flowers and the pictures in the church 
and the Blessed Virgin, and the good St. Joseph. 
Besides her own litth' church that she knew and loved 
so Avell, was the Baptist Mission across the street, 
where there were no shrine and no candles, only just 
bare walls and benches. How drear it must be inside, 
the child thought as she sat by the open window 
watching the peo])le come and go, their long, black 
shadows darting like big swallows on the pavement 
as they passed the liglit. Within the little organ 
squeaked and rasped, and once as she sat listening 
she heard the voices singing: 

'' Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow." 

The child kept saying the words over and over to 
herself. AV^hat could they mean, she wondered, this 
little one had never seen a snow-fall. 

'' What is the snow like, Maman ? " she would say, 
'^ and why do you call me Snow-white ? " 

*^ It is by the reason that my little one is pure like 
the snow itself, that 1 call her so ; ^' Felice would 
answer. ^^ Wait, petite, by and by you will see, per- 
haps, when the wind blows and the cold comes." 

" How white is the snow," the child would ask, 
and taking a sample of cotton from the pocket of his 
blouse, Pierre would scatter the lint about her head 
saying, " whiter than that." 

"■ Whiter than this,'' Babette told her when she 
took the frothy suds from the tubs, and threw them 
up into the air till they fell in tiny water-bits upon 
the ground. 

*^ Whiter than these," Pdre Martin would say as 
he lifted her up to his broad shoulder, and held her 



61 

aloft until her face was buried in a mass of orange 
blossoms above. 

^' This is a strange winter/' said 'Sieur Antoine 
one night as he sat fingering his violin strings Avhich 
were taut and dry with the cold. 

'* Will it snow/' asked the child eagerly. 

'' Since eight years the snow has not come/' said 
Felice, "• and we remember it so well, is it not, the 
night before the little one came ? " 

" I remember/' said Babette, '' and was it like 
this, all still and grey? I would not cover my tubs 
that night thinking to catch the rain, and the next 
morning, were they not beautiful, those tubs?" 

"- Is it then so beautiful," asked the child. ''Will 
you not take your violin 'Sieur Antoine, and tell me 
how it looks?" 

And 'Sieur Antoine ])layed. Those who knew felt 
the inaudible falling of the flakes, thicker and thicker, 
but gentle as the drawing of a shroud. He kept his 
eyes upon the child, and he saw her waiting, listening. 
Suddenly, with a twang of the strings and a twist of 
the bow^, there came the jingle of sleigh-bells, the 
sound of merry voices, and the little one's face was 
glad. But 'Sieur Antoine forgot, and he played on 
and on in the minor chords, till tears stood in the 
child's eyes, and Felice put out her hand to stay him. 

" Is it then like that and that, the snow/' asked 
the little one when he was stopped. " Ah, it can- 
not be." 

''Perhaps," said 'Sieur Antoine, and the others 
could not speak for fear ; was it the music that held 
them ? But the next day it was come. Snow-white 



62 

felt it when she opened her eyes that morning, and 
saw the daylight peeping in pale and strange thro' 
the curtains, and creeping to the window, she looked 
out. The streets were already busy and merry with 
the voices of children, and how glad a time it was in 
the old city where the snow so seldom came, but more 
than all else the little one felt the wondrous purity of 
the white world without, and with an echo of 'Sieur 
Antoine's snow music in her ears, she folded her 
hands and knelt down. 

"Holy Mother of God, wash me, and I shall be 
whiter than snow." 

Ah, poor little one, how these old words came 
back to her afterwards, when this day was long since 
dead ! 



CHAPTER III. 

When again the peeping of the daylight thro' the 
parted curtains in the little grey house showed the 
snow piled high upon the street and housetop, only 
Pierre and Felice, with clasped hands, stood sadly by 
the window looking out, and, as once in the old sweet 
days, they had knelt and blessed the Virgin for 
giving them the little one, so now again they bowed 
together and prayed. What was it they were saying 
now, these bowed ones? Ah, I know not, only One 
heard, for they spoke not, for the prayer was in their 
hearts. 

All day the snow fell, growing thicker and thicker, 
making even the air white with its whirling flakes, and, 



63 

as night came down, and the first lights began to shine 
across the little narrow street, a woman, scarce more 
than a child she seemed, with her rumpled yellow 
hair and her wide blue eyes, hurrying along in the 
cold, stopped now and then in a quiet doorway to rest. 
Was it the snow that blinded her eyes and hindered 
her feet, and what was it that kept sounding in her ears? 
Was it not then all true, all true the old sad music of 
'Sieur Antoine's violin ? Oh God ! Oh God ! if she 
had only known ! And the woman pulled the shawl 
closer about her face ; the snow was blinding her eyes. 
Where was he now, the good 'Sieur Antonie, and 
Felice and Pierre and Marta and Babette ? Would 
they see her out there in the snow as she passed? 
The light shown but dimly thro' the drawn curtains 
of the little grey house, and the old Mission across 
the way was still and dark. What was it she had 
heard the voices singing there once in the old days? 

^' Wash me — '^ Oli God ! Would anybody hear if 
she sang the old words over to herself? Holy Mother, 
keep yet a little while the chill that was creeping to 
her heart ! Oh God, help till she might find P^re 
Martin and confess ! Poor little one, the burden was 
crushing her. 

How quiet it was in the little church, where the 
candles burnt within the chancel sweet with the odor 
of incense. How quiet and how warm. Would 
they come by and by, the good Pdre Martin and 
Felice and Pierre, perhaps, and find her there waiting, 
their Snow-white little one? 

Oh God! No. Snow-white no lona-er! Oh 
God ! 



(J4 



The black shadows stole nearer and nearer. ^^Ave 
Maria, plena gracia — " the old words had slipped 
from her memory. How long had it been since she 
had said them ? " Tho' thy sins be as scarlet — " what 
was the rest ? Had she not heard once in the old 
days, or was Mary whispering in her ear as she lay 
now at her feet ? The chill crej^t closer and closer, 
the blue eyes grew dim, but the lips parted, and One 
who called the Virgin mother heard the words of the 
old })rayer: '^ Wash me, and 1 shall be whiter than 
snow." 

By and by they found Iht with the old sweet 
smile upon her stilled lips, and the old childish look 
over all the calm features, and thus had the snow 
given them back their little one, and brought home 
the lamb to the fold. 



66 



Thomas McTair and His 
Nancy. 



fWAS riding slowly along on my tired sorrel nag, 
for reasons which I thought would be pleasure 
and I hoped would be profit, traversing the 
mountains of East Tennessee, not far from Jasper. 
I was in the very midst of the forest primeval: 
giant trees stretched their gnarled branches above 
my head, and scattered their brilliant leaves, weav- 
ing a carpet for my horse's feet more gorgeous than 
kings have trod. Away oif in the lonely Sequatchie 
I coukl see the slo])ing ridges and spreading spurs, 
dovetailing into each other their crimson and yellow 
and purple till all faded alike into the distant blue, 
as the moulitains lost themselves in the misty west. 
No sound broke tlie stillness, save now and then the 
barking of a squirrel cracking nuts in the big chest- 
nut trees, or the late call of a wood-bird for his mate. 
I was musing on the mighty works of God, and the 
pitiful efforts of his unworthy creatures as I rode 
along, and wondering where I should get my supper, 
for I was what might be called decently hungry and 



66 

indecently thirsty. Suddenly, a sharp turn in the 
trail stuck my horse's nose almost into the very face 
of a man who sat on a rock by the roadside, staring- 
straight before him. His head and chest were thrown 
forward, his chin had dropped below zero, his lank 
knees spread wide apart like the open jaws of a 
Louisiana alligator, and his hands hung limp at his 
side. A suit of brown jeans, so new that they smelt 
of the walnut-bark dye, clothed his thin stripe of 
manly form, and a shirt-collar of blue hickory, turned 
down around a spare neck, to the very verge of 
which his fadev, straw-colored hair was plastered, 
sleek as a ball-room floor, with turkey-fat. A more 
perfect picture of abject misery I never saw before 
nor since, and I jerked my pony's head out of the 
man's face and leaned forward in my saddle to look 
at him. , , , . 

'' Got it bad?" I asked at last, when the creaking 
of his stiff clothes and the snort of his heavy breath- 
ing became embarrassingly audible in the (juietude of 

the forest. 

^' That's what 1 hev, stranger," he said, lifting his 
jaw, but still keeping his eyes fixed straight ahead. 
'' Ketched it in the neck an' the collar-bone an the 
chist an' the breas'-bone, an' the heart an' «ie stomick 
an' the lights an' the livers an' the bowils an' the 
yuther lower regions. Facks er the business is, I ve 
got it f'um the crownd er my ol' fool head to the soles 
er my big blamed foot. Got it all over." 

'^^Vhat gave it to you?" 

He sprang to his seven feet of height with a yell 
that reverberated on the mountain side, jumped about 



67 

a yard from the ground, cracking his heels together 
as he came down again. 

^^ What gin it to me, stranger?'^ he shouted when 
he had lit, "what gin it to me? Why Nancy, ov 
course. Who'd you s^pose? Cause why? Cause er 
these here plague-on clones what you see befo^ you 
a-kiverin^ this flabber-gasted oV hide er mine. Look 
at 'em, stranger, look at 'em, fur Gawd's sake, fur 
their een is nigh at lian'." And the fellow gyrated 
around among the dry leaves like a materialized 
whirlwind. 

"Clothes?" said I. "What's the matter with 
your clothes? That's as good a suit as I've seen this 
side of Pennsylvania." 

" Stranger, you don't mean it." he said softly, 
coming up close beside me, and fetching me a whack 
across my thigh that tingled all the way up my anat- 
omy, creeping out at the end of my funny-bone. 
"Sho' now, you don't mean it." 

" Yes, I do though, but what does Nancy say about 
it?" I answered. 

"Stranger!" he said, leaning on my pony's neck, 
and looking up at me confidentially, "you see it's 
this 'er way. Me an' Nancy thar, 's been keepin' 
comp'ny ni^h on to three year come the thirteen day 
er nex' December, an' things had about got*whar thar 
warn't nairy ornery cuss on the mounting as dared to 
look at the groun' she walked on. I'm some, stranger, 
when I gits riled, an' the fellows 'lowed 'twas my 
deal, an' cl'ared the track. Well, sech was matters 
tell the twenty-seven day er las' Angus', whenst we 
was comin' home f'um meetin' down to the cove. 



68 

That day I axed an' Nancy spoke the word, and we 
fixed the time — this here very day, blame it — fur the 
knot to be tied, the knot which binds but don't 
ineberate." I saw the feOow's jaw was beginning to 
quiver, and suddenly he clapped his hands to his face 
and dropped back on the stone. T thought he was 
going off into one of those staring trances, perhaps, 
or worse, so I interposed gently : 

"Where was tlie hitch?" 

''Right here, durn it all," he shouted, slapping liis 
narrow pantaloons and flinging (►pen his ample coat 
front. "These here clo'es, I tell you. Mam made 
em fur me witli her own ban's, too; that's whar it 
hurts. 1 can't go back to the cabin an' tell Mam 
Nancy scorned the clo'es slie made, could you, now, 
stranger, 't you was nu' ? I've knowed Mam 
longer' n I hev Nancy, an' she hev stood by me 
th'ough evil as well as th'ough good report, in sick- 
ness an' in health" — tlie fellow's eyes were getting 
set again. " Oh Lordy ! Whatcher reckon make my 
ol' fool min' keep runnin'on that marridge cer'mony? 
As 1 aimed to tell you while ago. Mam, she made this 
here suit out'n-out, cardin' an' spinnin' an' weavin' 
an' cuttin' an' sewin' and all. She ripped uj) Pap's 
weddin' suit fur a patron, which Gran'-pap he'd 
mar'id in 'the same befo' him. An' this hickory stripe 
shirt, she made it, too, an' stranger, what's a fellow to 
do? I can't go home, s' help me Gawd, an' tell the 
ol' 'oman Nancy scorned the clo'es she made fer 
me, but I don't min' tellin' you, seein' you are handy, 
an' seem kinder soft an' harmless. As I 'lowed the 
weddin' was to come off to-night, so I got ready an' 



69 

went down early, aimiii' to be on han^, an' thinkin^ I 
could he^p 'roun' mebbe, fetchin' wood an' drawin' 
cider. I got thar soon arter dinner, an' Nancy^s little 
sis Ten, she seed me comin', and ranned an' toP the 
yuthers. An' by gum, whenst I shinned over the 
fence, an' started up the parth to the house, thar they 
all was, big as life, come to the door to watch me. 
Thar was Nancy an' her Mam an' her Dad an' Buck 
an' Jeems, an' Marthy Ann an' 'Randy Gibbs f um 
over at Jasper, what had come to stan' up at the 
weddin', an' that little blame' Tennessee, an' Nancy ! 
Lord, how they seem' to swell thar in the cabin door, 
as I fumbled up to the house th'ough the dead leaves. 
Seem' like thar was a plum army of 'em thar, an' 
Nancy, an' look like my legs tangled up same's a in- 
terferin' horse, an' my arms growed so long they 
tetched the groun' an' my feet so big the yearth 
couldn't hoi' em. My, stranger, but I was hot whenst 
I did get to that cabin do', which it natchelly seemed 
to be miles away. Well, whenst I did get thar, thar 
was Nancy !" 

^^^ Thomas McTair,' she said, pyeart-like, steppin' 
to the front, an' 'Randy Gibbs a-eggin' her on f'um 
behin'. ' Thomas McTair,' — Pap, his name is 
Thomas, an' Mara jined on the McTair fur the bishop 
what uster be down to Nashville — ' Thomas McTair,' 
says Nancy, ^ was you aimin' to marry in them jeans 
garments?' she says. ^Them was my intentions,' says 
I, seein' she had spoke so proper. ' Well, Mr. Lane,' 
she up an' answer, ' if them is your intentions, you'll 
git some yuther gal to marry you. If a man is too 
low down to git a pa'r er sto'-bought clo'es to marry 



70 

in, why the Lord hev mercy on his soul, fur I won't/ 
Yes, sir, them's what Nancy's very words war, an' 
with that the do' slammed, an' w^henst I looked up 
thar warn'nt no Nancy ! O Lord ! O Lord !" 

'^ Stranger," lie began again after a moment, "did 
you mean them words you spoke about this dad- 
blamed suiter jeans? Did you now?" 

" Well, yes," I answered. ''From my standpoint 
that is a first-rate suit, straight goods, all wool and a 
yard wide." 

" Thanky, stranger, thanky !" said Thomas Mc- 
Tair exuberantly, ''blamed ef I don't tell the old 
lady them words er your'n ; but see here, stranger, 
would you min' swoppin' ?" 

" What ? Suits ?" I asked, smiling at the remem- 
brance of the twelve inches of difference in our 
heights. 

"That's what," he said eagerly. "You see, it's 
tliiser w^ay : Thar's plenty time yit, fo' the weddin' 
was to 'a been, an' ef you air a min' to 'commodate 
me I kin git thar by the time the 'squire'll come, 
an' bless Gawd, I'll git Nancy !" 

"I am afraid your clothes won't fit me," I said, 
temporizingly. 

His face fell. '^ Looker here, stranger," he said, 
and there were tears in his eyes. " I'mer losin' the 
chance er Nancy ! You don't know what that means, 
ea'se you've never sot eyes on that purty face er hern, 
nur seen her walkin' in the mist uv a mornin' with 
the dampness curlin that yeller hair uv hern, an' — O 
Lord, stranger, ain't thar a gal som'ers as vou'd die to 
git?" 



71 

" Right you are there, Thomas/' I said, dismount- 
ing. "You've hit the nail on the head, and I'll tell you 
what I'll do for you. Mam's cooked up a lot of good 
things, hasn't she, back at the cabin, for you and 
Nancy to start honey-mooning on ?" 

" That's what," he answered. 

" Well, shuck off. I'll lend you my suit till the 
wedding's over, provided you'll put me on the trail to 
your cabin, and give me supper and a bed. A fellow 
gets kinder played climbing mountains." 

'^ Stranger, you're a trump," cried Thomas with 
effusion. '^You're a man, ever' inch of you, an' 
you're treatin' me white. O Lord ! Jest to think, 
I'll git Nancy !" 

" I say, Thomas," said I, after we had both dis- 
robed, " you'll have to get that turkey grease out of 
your hair, or I'm afraid my hat won't stay on your 
head ; it will slip off, you know." 

"Right you air, stranger," he said, eyeing my 
rough shock, "mebbe a little stragglin' look, as you 
mought call it, would go better with sto'-bought 
clo'es. But come down this way a piece." 

He picked up my bundle of clothes and his own 
big boots, which he had been compelled to remove in 
order to skin his trousers over his feet, and led the 
way down the trail, clad only in his under-suit of un- 
washed Sea-island. 

We came presently upon a little cove under over- 
hanging ledges of rock whence a spring bubbled, 
trailing its way noisily down the mountain-side. 
Before I knew what he was about Thomas McTair 
had thrown himself forward on the palms of his hands, 
6 



72 

and was standing feet uppermost over the stream. The 
ripples gurgled through his long hair, washing the oil 
out upon the troubled waters. 

" Never wet a thread, did I ? " he said, bv and by, 
as he turned a somersault, and landed on his feet. 

By this time I was comfortably habited in his 
hickory shirt and brown jeans, with about a foot of 
trousers turned u]) in an English roll around my 
ankles. 

Thomas McTair's dressing proceeded more slowly, 
converting him into a forked sight. My trousers 
struck him about the region of his calves, and refused 
to be coaxed any lower, but this was a minor defect 
as his cow-hide boot-tops nobly satisfied the deficiency. 
But up above there were no extenuating circumstances. 
The button-tab at the end of the shirt-bosom struck 
him amid seas, and lopped over the low-cut vest. The 
short sack coat failed to hide the strap and buckle in 
the rear, and showed a suspicious line of white round 
the waist places when he raised his arm. About three 
inches of Sea-island under-shirt formed a cuff })ro- 
truding beneath the coat sleeve. His wet hair stood 
out in little weepy wisps all over his head, but the 
biggest thing in sight was the smile that pervaded his 
countenance. 

" Don't happen to hev a lookin'-glass about you, 
do you, stranger?" he asked, when his toilet was 
complete. 

" I do just," I said, reaching in my saddle-bags for 
my traveling case, and the glow of satisfaction that 
showed in his face at sight of his comical reflection 
rewarded me for my philanthropic endeavors. 



73 

^^ Stranger," he said to me by and by, as he held 
my hand in his, " you hev been to me a frien' in need 
with two in the bush, that's what. Now s'long tell I 
.see you agin. You foller the leadin' er that thar trail 
th'ough the underbresh, an' fust news you know 
you'll see the cabin in the cla'rin', an' mo'n likely 
Mam er milkin' the cow. She's survigrous lookin' 
Mam is, but she's all right. You jest tell her Thomas 
McTair sont you, an' your fort'in's made with Mam. 
The jug sets behin' the do'. S'long : I'm loaded now 
fur Nancy." 

I watched him swing himself down with quick, 
free strides, and by and by turned my liorse's head up 
through the underbrush. 

The sun was just sinking to rest, and hung like a 
red ball of fire beyond the murky mountains. I 
turned for a last long look at him to find myself star- 
ing straight down the barrel of a rifle. 

''Didn't calklate on this jest, did ye stranger?" 
asked the old man at the end of the gun as he came 
out from the underbrush. Be was a long, lean, lank, 
tough old customer with determination written in box- 
car letters all ov^er his hard old face, and I began to 
feel a little shaky in my bones with that hungry- 
looking rifle filling up the space between us. 

" Well, I believe you are right, old man," I began, 
circulating through all the grey matter of my brain 
to produce an appropriate answer. 

'^ I 'lowed not, ye dadblasted valley-man ye," the 
old man interrupted me. '' I could give ye the same 
as ye sont mebbe, with ol' meat-in-the-pot here, but 
shootin's too good fur ye. I guess ye'U keep handy 



■^4 

enough, so ye'U 'commodate me by leadin' the way up 
that there trail whilst me an' ol' meat-in-the-pot brings 
upm the rear." 

'^ No use talking over matters before we get up, is 
there, old fellow?" I asked, breathing easier at the 
chance of a respite at least, and finding that the trail 
was the one pointed out by Thomas McTair. I put 
two and two together and concluded that my captor 
was the flitlier of my whilom friend, and that perhaps 
matters might not prove as disastrous as they looked. 

A half hour's steady pull brought us to the clear- 
ing which Thomas McTair had described, and sure 
enough, Mam was at the pen milking. The old man 
directed mv way up to the rickety rail fence, and 
called his w'ife to him, speaking to her in husky whis- 
pers which I could not understand. 

By and by he made me dismount and lead the way 
into the cabin. " Onload, stranger," he said, motion- 
ing me to a seat in the chimney corner by the fire. I 
gave him mv pistol and empty flask, w^iich were all I 
had transferred from mv pockets to Thomas McTair's 
when we changed clothes. Through the open window^ 
I saw the old woman leading away my tired nag, and 
I hoped she would give him a good supper. Presently 
she came in. 

'' Bets," said the old man, giving her the rifle, ye 
set thar by the table, an' keep the gun p'inted plum. 
Ef the skunk wink his eve onnecessary, why let her 
go Gallagher. I'd like to keep him tell the boys 
kin see the fun, but blaze away ef he shows his teeth. 
I'll g'long down now." 

Bets was a " survigrous " old woman, as Thomas 



75 

McTair had said, and she gazed at me witli tire in her 
eye, and her finger on the trigger. I calculated upon 
the chance of Thomas McTair's probable return to 
the parental roof, and concluded that for the sake of 
my health and the welfare of humanity at large, it 
would be unwise to put off eating and drinking till 
that time. I looked the old lady straight in her fiery 
eye, and said with the deliberation of a seed-tick 
grabbing for keeps, and in the sanctimonious tone of 
a newly-appointed circuit-rider : 

^^ Madam, if I should by chance die of starvation 
before my friend Thomas McTair returns from the 
wedding, kindly tell him that it broke my heart to go 
Avithout seeing him once more in this life, and that I 
shall hope to meet him in heaven. '' The old woman's 
hand shook, and I feared the trigger would fall, but 
it didn't, and I kept on. "Tell my friend, Thomas 
McTair, that I will and bequeath to him and his heirs 
forever my plug horse, my saddle-bags, and all that 
is in them, my six-shooter and my empty flask, and 
this I do in return for the favor he showed me in so 
nobly exchanging this excellent and altogether lovely 
suit of brown Jeans for my own garments which moth 
and dust doth corrupt, and thieves break thro' and 
steal. Amen." 

By this time the old woman was in tears. She 
laid the gun on the table, grabbed a pumpkin pie from 
the shelf behind her with one hand, and about a yard 
of fried smoked sausage links with the other. 

^' Stranger," she said, shaking a tear about the size 
of a marrowfat pea from the end of her thin nose, 
" stranger, set to." 



7() 

She laid a plate upon tlic table as she spoke, flanked 
it with a bowl of apple sauce, a corn-pone, and 
about two dozen hard-boiled eggs. ''The cabin's 
your'n, stranger," she said, as I drew my chair to 
the board. 

''And the jug behind the door? " 1 enquired. 

"An' the jug behin' the door," she said, producing 
a fat, brown demijohn, and a cracked glass. 

By and l)y she took the gun and set it over in the cor- 
ner with a tliump. " Oh ! Tom Lane alius was a born'd 
fool," she said, emphatically, as she fished her snuff- 
box and brush from her pocket, and sat down to 
ruminate. 

I had about cleared up everything in sight, and 
was feeling wonderfully comfortable inside, when I 
heard a yell like a stray Comanche's and old Lane 
burst in upon us. 

"Thang Gawd I " he said, grabbing my hand and 
almost crushing it in his own. " Thang Gawd ye air 
live an' kickiu'. Blamed ef I didn't think ye'd kill 
my son, Thomas McTair, fur the clothes on his back, 
blarst my ol' fool hide." 

Thomas McTair and Nancy came in soon after. 

"By gum, stranger," Paid the big fellow, "but 
you missed a close call f'um the old man's gun, didn't 
you. But it's all right now. You're safe, and I've 
got Nancy." 

I staid with them till the sun was high in the 
heavens next day, and Thomas McTair went down the 
trail with me a bit to put me in the right road. 

" You've been a Gawd-sen' to me, stranger," he 
said, at parting, " fur you got me Nancy." 



77 



The distant tree-tops blazed iu the glory of the 
noon-day sun as I turned into the rocky mountain 
road ; the grey squirrels Avarmed themselves amid the 
branches overhead, rattling down chestnut-hulls upon 
the fallen leaves, and away back in the underbrush I 
heard the high pitched, happy voice of Thomas Mc- 
Tair : " O git along, git along, git along Nancy, way 
down in Rockingham/' 




78 



An Unbroken Bond. 



^T was 8t. Valentine's eve, and at midnight 1 had 
•jxIl jnst returned, wet and eold, from visiting a pa- 
^ tient way out in the Thirteenth District. As I 
hung my dripping coat in the outer closet I stumbled 
over a box, which, I remembered, the office boy told 
me had come by express during the morning. It was 
a small wooden case and (juite light, so I carried it 
upstairs with me and set it down on the hearth. I 
put on my slippers and dressing-gown, got down my 
cigars and was just seating myself to have a good 
rest, when something familiar in the writing on the 
box at my feet struck mv attention. 

" Why, it is Murcherson's fist," I said. " What 
can he be sending me?'' 

Drawing out the nails, I opened the box hastily, 
finding it, as I thought, filled with the most beautiful 
cigars, long, slim, black Havanas, every one. " Murch- 
erson's a trump," I said, taking up a handful of the 
beauties. As I did so my hand struck something 
hard underneath. Removing the cigars hastily I 
found that they covered a man's skull, of the mos 
exquisite shape and polish, being rich and creamy a^ 



79 

old ivory. I took it out of the box and examined it 
closely, marveling much at its matchless beauty and 
symmetry. By and by I put it up on the mantel in 
front of me, between the clock and a little brass 
casket, wherein I kept a few little worthless souve- 
nirs. As I resumed my seat it seemed to me that the 
eye-sockets in the skull had gathered expression, and 
that its grinning mouth was ready to speak. 

I am a plain, practical man, not given to fantasies, 
but I could not shake off the hideous fascination 
which the vacant countenance had for me. I opened 
book after book, only to turn over the leaves unread. 
The skull kept glaring at me. I lit my cigar and 
tried to doze, but my eyes refused to close. I got up 
by and by and turned the skull with its face to the 
wall, but then it seemed to me that the thing was 
leering at me over an imaginary shoulder. It was 
horrible. I turned out the gas and sat in the semi- 
darkness, the firelight flickering and throwing long 
shadows across the room. 

By and by I heard the clock strike one. 

" It is St. Valentine^s Day," I said, throwing 
some fresh coal into the grate. St. Valentine's Day ! 
What did that mean to me? It had meant a great 
deal to me once, and man that I was, with grey hairs 
beginning to show at ray temples, it seemed to me 
that I looked more and more eagerly for its coming, 
grew more and more anxious for the word that was 
to come to me on St. Valentine's Day — the word that 
was to make me so happy. 

I had been but nineteen when I first knew Chris- 
tine, and she was just budding into the flower of per- 



80 

feet womanhood. I knew 1 loved her from the first, 
and fancied I could not err in believing that she re- 
turned my love as frankly as it was given. Years 
passed — two, three — yet I did not speak ; there seemed 
no use. It was but natural that we shoukl love, and 
I had no fear of the future. It was my last year at 
college, and I wanted to wait and slu)w lier that it 
was a man's love that I had to give her. 

It was during this year, at mid-term, that Maurice 
Beaumont came. When I think of him it always 
seems that what foHowed his coming came but 
naturally. He was one of those reckless, fascinating, 
brilliant men who know no Uiw but their own will. 
Personally, he was the most beautiful man I ever be- 
held. Tall, lithe, graceful, he possessed that sensu- 
ous languor of bearing which so often conceals a fiery 
intensity of temperament. His brow was broad and 
expansive and smooth as polished marble ; his eyes — 
were they black or blue? I never knew, but I have 
seen them flash forth irridescent rays of purple 
that gleamed like fire. His chin was deeply cleft, his 
lips were full and mobile and smootli as a woman's. 

It was I who introduced this man to Christine. 
It was upon St. Valentine's Day, and I shall never 
forget the meeting. When she came into us as we 
sat awaiting her in the firelit room, Maurice arose as 
I called her name, and, without speaking, he held 
out his hand to her, looking at her with his eyes half 
veiled under his long lashes. And she ? I was 
standing near her and saw her whole slight frame 
shudder as with a sudden chill, but her cheeks were 
burning red when she put her hand in his. During 



81 

the months that followed I strove to blind myself to 
what was happening before my very eyes. I had 
nothing to offer but my love, and when school was 
over I went to tell her. I am sure she must have 
known I should tell her, but I shall never forget the 
look of anguish that came upon her face as I poured 
out my love to her. 

'^ Oh, Henry," she cried, bending toward me and 
clasping her hands, " do not, I beseech you, do not 
say any more." 

^' But I love you, Christine," I said. 

" If you love me, have pity on me and say no 
more," she answered. " I cannot, I must not love 
you. Be my friend, Henry, and help me.'' 

Her manner alarmed me. '' What is it, Chris- 
tine?" I cried. ^^ You have but to tell me what you 
wish." 

" There is only one way — do not speak — go away. 
It must be. I may not, I must not listen. I must 
not love you." 

Ere the words had died upon her lips, Maurice 
Beaumont had come into the room and stood between 
us, his eyes flashing flre. His voice was more than 
calm as he spoke. 

'^ Who speaks of love to thee, ma belle ? " he said, 
as he took Christine's hand in his. I could almost 
have killed him when he stooped and kissed her. 
Without a word she sank back, flushed but passive. 
I turned and fled from the house, and I think neither 
knew that I was gone. 

Two years passed before I ever saw either again. 
I was returning from the dissecting room one night, 



82 

wheu I felt an arm slipped into mine and heard a 
familiar voice greeting me. It was Beaumont. Bit- 
ter as I felt toward him, I could not shake off his 
grasp, could not resist the fascination which he had 
always exerted over me. He went with me to niy 
room and ensconsed himself in my best arm-chair. 
We talked of anything, everything but Christine. I 
dared not ask him of her, and I knew nothing save 
that they were not married. 

" \yhat day is this?" he asked at last. 

'^ Tuesday," I answered. 

''And the day after to-morrow is St. Valentine's 
Day," he said. '' Do you remember St. Valentine^s 
Dav two years ago, Henry ? " 

'Without waiting for me to reply he pulled out his 
Avatch, exclaiming : " Just two o'clock. Come, 
hustle into a fresh rig. AVe shall have time to 
catch the south-bound train, and on Valentine\s Day 
we shall be with Christine. What do you say? 
Come." 

It was a very strange meeting, that with Chris- 
tine. I could not help feeling that she was glad of 
my coming, though she gave me scarce a word more 
than the greeting. Brilliant as I knew Beaumont to 
be, I had never seen him as he was that night. He 
was gay, witty, sparkling ; he was grave, calm, tender, 
passionate, intense, as the mood suited him, but al- 
ways fascinating. By and by he sat down to the open 
piano and let his fingers fly over the keys till they 
seemed possessed of the very demon of music, weird 
and fantastic. Suddenly, while still the spell of his 
playing was on us, he came and stood before us. 



83 

^' I am going away/' he .said. " I shall never 
trouble you again, if you will only wait patiently. I 
know not where I shall go, nor when I shall return, 
but it will be on St. Valentine's Day. Wait, and ex- 
pect me." 

Stooping over he pressed his lips to Christine's 
brow, then, tossing into my lap a long, slender cigar, 
such as he always smoked, he grasped my hand and 
,was gone. 

Ten years passed slowly for us, and still there 
came no word of Beaumont. It had been needless 
for me to urge Christine to become my wife. 

" I am bound to him by a sacred promise, Henry," 
she said, ^^ and I love you too well to have you suffer. 
We must await his coming. You do not know his 
power." 

I was thinking of all these things that night while 
the skull kept leering at me from the mantel. The 
fire had burned low in the grate as I mused, and it 
had grown quite dark in the room. Sinking back into 
the chair, I closed my eyes. Did I sleep ? I know 
not what time passed, but suddenly I heard the sharp 
stroke of a match, a faint light gleamed and faded, 
and opening my eyes I saw that the skull had turned 
its face to me, and between its grinning rows of teeth 
was a cigar, a long, black Havana. 

^' How are you, Henry, old boy ? " Could I be 
asleep and dreaming, or was it really Beaumont's 
voice coming to me from the skull? I was too 
startled to speak, and the voice went on : 

'' I tried to come back sooner, but I was afraid. 
She would have married me, and it had been better 



84 

for her to die than to be tied to such a reprobate as I. 
Do not reproach me for keeping you waiting so long ; 
I was afraid to come while I was alive. I loved her 
so; my God, how I loved her I But, adieu forever. 
Morning will soon be here — the morning of St. Val- 
entine's Day! May it bring joy to you and her? I 
didn't mean you to keep this weed for me, but I have 
enjoyed it. Thanks. Good-by." 

I shook myself up with a start. Had I been 
asleep? The room was dark with the blackness that 
harbingers the coming day. The fire was neai-ly out, 
my limbs were numb with cold. Hastily lighting 
the gas, I looked about me. The skull sat upou the 
mantel, its vacant sockets staring, its mouth grinning. 
The teeth on one side were slightly discolored as fioni 
tobacco, and <m the shelf beside lay a little heap of 
ashes and a cigar stump ! 

Unlocking the casket with the key, which always 
hung to my watch chaiu, 1 searched for the cigar 
which Beaumont had given me the last night 1 had 
seen him. It w^as gone I 

As I closed the casket hastily, my elbow brushed 
against the skull, knocking it over upon the hearth 
below. A little bit of paper fell from within it, dis- 
lodged by the jar. Picking it U[) eagerly, I read : 

'' Dear Doc : — I found this queer skull in a curio 
shop in Havana. The old fellow who kept the shop 
was hard up at the time, else he would never have 
parted with it. He told me it was the skull of a queer 
(!hap named Beaumont, who used to frequent his shop 
and smoke his best cigars. Beaumont died a year or 



85 



so ago, and left a request that my old curio dealer 
should preserve his skull, himself giving directions 
how it should be prepared. It struck me as being 
somewhat out of the common order, so I send it to 
you as a Valentine, along with these weeds. 

'^ Yours, Tom Murcherson." 



I passed my hand before my eyes. I was not 
dreaming now, at any rate. Between the curtains the 
faintest streak of gray was showing. The day was 
breaking — St. Valentine's Day. 



«<) 



A BKI.ATED SPRINCi TiMH. 



^jTT was a bitterly cold morniiijj^, and the blue-coated 
•>% policeman who had been walking slowly up and 
^^ down the block for half an hour without ceasing, 
beat his hands together and snuggled his bearded face 
down into his upturned collar. He looked up and 
down the avenue anxiously now and then, as if hoping 
to see some one, but at last paused before a little white- 
washed cabin. He waited still irresolute, scanning 
closely the long broad street, but apparently in vain, 
for in another moment he had stepped up to the cabin 
door and opened it without knocking. 

'' Happy New Year to you, Uncle Isham," he said 
cheerily, putting his head in, and smiling pleasantly 
at the old negro who sat before the fire with a big 
well-filled platter on the table beside him and a tin 
cup of steaming coffee in his hand. 

• " 'Fo' Gawd, Marse Billy, honey, ef you ain't 
skeered the goose llesh out on me," said the old man, 
struggling to his feet, and spilling the coffee, which 
ran in a little trickling stream down his ragged 
trousers. " Fust time I seed you dis year sar, an' here 
day too," he went on, laughing at his 



87 

own pleasantry. " Bnt come in out'n de col', chile, 
an' set down 'fo de fire and ^varm youse'f. An' de 
same to you, sar, alius an' whatsomever." 

" Thanky, Uncle Ishani, thanky," and the officer 
drew a chair up to the glowing fire that crackled and 
flared on the wide hearth. 

" How's the rheumatiz," he asked, stretching his 
hands out to the warmth, and looking up to the old 
man over his shoulder. 

'^ Poly, Marse Billy," answered the old man, " poly, 
thank Gawd. How's youse'f, sar. 

" First rate, thanks, old man, but it's cold as 
charity out there. 

'' Hello'. What's all this? " said the officer, break- 
ing off and stooping down to examine a pair of 
turkey wings and a big outspread tail which lay 
stretched and drying amid the ashes on the hearth. 

" Dem dar, sar," asked the old man shyly, " dem 
dar's turkey fans, Marse Billy." 

" Fans, eh ? " said the officer rising to his feet, and 
facing about sharply, with his back to the fire, "and 
what's that in that dish over there? T for turkey 
bones? Why, man, you must have been having a 
spread. Why didn't you give me an invite for old 
times' sake? Haven't been getting married now^, have 
you, old man, without me to give the bride away?" 

" Sho now, Marse Billy," said Isham with a burst 
of laughter, " who you reckon gwin't marry a no 
count old fellow lack me?" 

" Who? Why that's just what I want to know. 
Aunt Em'lv. on the other side the fence maybe, ain't 
it?" asked 'Billy. 
7 



88 

^' You go off now, Marse Billy, chile," said the 
old man, laughing with infinite delight, and shuffling 
from one foot to the other nervously. " Slie wouldn't 
have sech as me nohow." 

'' Don't know about that so mueh," the officer 
went on pleasantly, •' l)ut — where did you say you got 
your turkey ?" 

The old man shuffled to the H re-place in an em- 
barrassed kind of way, and ])ut on a stick of wood. 
" It was gin to me, sar." 

'^ It was eh? Well, tliat's lueky. And who gin 
it to you?" the officer turned back his coat tails, ran 
his hands down deep into his pockets, and gi-iinicd 
facetiously. 

" A lady, sar." • 

'^ A lady, Uncle Ishaiu ? Why, this grows inter- 
esting. Wish I could Hiul a lady kind enough to 
' gin ' me a turkey now and then for a change. A 
lady? Well, what does that mean? Thiidv you could 
make enough for two of your size, old man ? How's 
business anyhow ? " 

" Purtv fair, sar, }>urty fair. Ain't got no cause 
to complain." 

'' That's good," said Billy, in an absent-minded, 
temporizing kind of way. "Cold weather brought 
you plenty of wood-sawing, 1 reckon. By the by, you 
weren't in day before yesterday ; at work then ? " 

"Yessar, I's out to Col. Gilmers, sar, choppin' 
stove wood," the old man answered. 

''On Jordan Street?" 

'' Yessar." 

" Next door to Sam Wilson's? " 



89 

"Yessar, Marse Billy," said the old man, hang- 
ing his head a little shamefacedly, it seemed ; ^^ how 
come you ax me dat, sar?" 

The officer's eyes dropped too as the old man 
spoke. He opened his watch, and shut it again with 
a sharp snap. He buttoned up his long coat, and 
pulled on his wool gloves with a brisk, business-like 
air. '^ Well, you'll have to come along with me, I 
reckon, old man," he said at last, looking fiercely 
down at his boots and shutting his lips firmly. 

"What you say, Marse Billy?" the old man 
asked. 

" I reck(>n you'll have to come along with me — 
to court, you know," the officer answered slowly, 
looking pitifully at the old man, and rubbing his 
gloved hands nervously together. 

" You see how it is, old man," he said ; " Sam 
Wilson had a turkey taken from his coop night be- 
fore last, a big, fine gobbler, with bronze markings — " 
he stoo])ed down and picked up one of the wings 
from the hearth, examining it critically — '' and — I 
think we had better go now, old man, it is nearlv nine 
o'clock." 

The old man sank down into his chair covering 
his face with his hands. He uttered no word, but 
gave a low sob, like a helpless child. 

The young man looked down at him sadly. He 
was not much to look at to be sure, this poor, broken 
old man, with whom the passing years had not dealt 
gently. There was only a fringe of wool now encir- 
cling his head like a disjointed nimbus, in the midst 
of which his bald pate shone like burnished bronze. 



90 

Age and rheumatism, and bending over the saw-buck, 
perhaps, had crooked forever the bowed back, and 
stiffened t}ie trembling limbs, and the poor old eyes 
from which the tears trickled slowly now, beneath the 
knotted fingers, were always red and w^atery from 
many years of whitewashing. 

Sure he was not mu(;h to look upon even at his 
best, but the young man who stood beside him gazed 
down at him fondly, ])assing his palm hurriedly before 
his eyes now and then. He could not remember when 
Isham had not been to him a dear, loved, familiar 
sight, this poor old wood- cutter, whom all Shreve- 
port knew and loved. He remembered with a vivid- 
ness that smote him in the face, blinding him almost 
to his duty, more than one dreary night, when he, 
a ragged barefoot lad, hungry and cold, and worse 
than homeless, had found shelter and warmth in 
the old man's cabin, and food at his humble board. 
Was it so very long since he had sat in that very 
chimney corner listening to the marvelous adven- 
tures of ^^Brer Rabbit'' and the old man's far distant 
youth ? 

Oh, Lord, this wouldn't do ! He fancied he heard 
the clock on the stroke while he lingered with his 
duty clear before him. He choked back the tears 
that filled his big-bearded throat, and stooping over, 
rested his hand on the old man's head. 

'' Maybe it'll all come right. Uncle Isham," he said 
gently, '' but I think I shall have to go now." 

The old man stood u}) dazed and helpless. The 
officer put his stick in his trembling hand, and reached 
his ragged old hat from its peg above the fire-place. 



91 

He banked the ashes over the glowing coals, and led 
the old man out, locking the door behind him. 

'• You just come on behind me, Uncle Isham," he 
said with kindly delicacy, and with bowed head he 
walked down the street slowly, in spite of his haste, 
that the poor shuffling old feet following him might 
not suffer. 

The little court-room over the market-house was 
crowded with culprits, poor pleasure-loving creatures 
who had come to reap the harvest of their holiday 
wild oats. 

The docket was almost completed when they got 
there, and Billy gave the old man a seat in the cor- 
ner by the stove. He sat with bowed head, silent and 
listless, even when his own name was called. 

"■ Stand up, Uncle Isham/^ said Billy, touching him 
on the shoulder. 

'^ Why, is it you, old man ?" asked the mayor, 
looking kindly over his glasses. 

The abject head only bowed lower, but the old 
man did not speak. He stood leaning on his stick, 
nervous and pitiful. 

The mayor asked the old man no questions. In- 
stead he and Billy held a long consultation together, 
speaking in husky whispers which the old man seemed 
not to hear. At the end of it Billy ran his hand 
down into his pocket, and began to unstrap a thin 
leather wallet which he pulled out. 

But the mayor was clinking together a couple of 
coins which he held in his hand, and he leaned over 
his desk to the old man and said, '' I reckon two dol- 
lars will compensate Mr. Wilson for the loss of his 



92 

gobbler, and another two to the city will make it 
even, if Billy will let me go halves with him for that 
amount and — and — I think you may go now, old man, 
for I am sure I will never see you here again." 

The old man lifted his head as if to speak, but his 
trembling lips were silent, and he did not move. 

*' Come, Uncle Isham," said Billy, taking him by 
the arm. 

'^ Beg pardon, your honor/' said a thin-faced, one- 
eyed constable, rising from his seat by the door, and 
taking a paper from his inner pocket, " I've a warrant 
sworn out before Justice Hanks for the arrest of this 
old negro on the charge of larceny ; 1 shall have to 
relieve von of him, friend Billy." 

'^ Confound that fellow WHson," said Billy be- 
tween his teeth, when he and the mayor w^ere left alone. 
'' Why couldn't he be satisfied with the worth of his 
turkey. If I had known all this I shouldn't have — " 

^* Wilson is a new man to the town, Billy, and you 
must remember, he doesn't know old Isham as w^e 
do," interru])ted the mayor. 

'^ Have you anything to offer in defense," asked 
young Hanks quite kindly when the old man's case 
\vas presented. The old iellow shook his head. 

^' Shall I appoint counsel?" 

'* 'Tain't wuth while, sar," the old man answered. 
*' Jess lemme know what you want when the gent'man 
gits thew." 

Mr. Wilson was on hand in person to offer testi- 
mony, which he did very clearly. The evidence was 
dead against the old man. On the last day of the old 
year he liad been engaged in chopping wood for CoL 



9;3 

Gilmer, Mr. Wilson's next-door neighbor. More 
than once dnring the day he had been seen in Mr. 
Wilson\s own back yard, talking with his cook. 

" HoAV about your cook, Mr. Wilson," said Hanks 
interrupting him, " do you knoAV her?'' 

^^ O, yes, she's been with me all the year. She's 
straight. Old Emily, you know." 

" O, Aunt Em'ly,'' said Hanks, reassured. 

The old man moved a step nearer the young judge, 
lifting for a moment his downcast eyes. His hat fell 
from his trembling lingers, he stooped to pick it up, 
and the evidence proceeded. 

From time to time during the year the old man 
had been a visitor to Mr. Wilson's kitchen, and also 
from time to time small quantities of wood had been 
missing from the wood-pile. However, this was 
merely in passing: no charge was to be preferred for 
the wood-stealing. That w^as only a suspicion. But 
upon New Year's day, having rather more serious 
doubts concerning the turkey, Mr. Wilson had 
stopped at the old man's cabin on his way down town, 
ostensibly to make arrangements for a job of white- 
washing, and had then seen drying on the hearth the 
wings and tail of what had once been his own bronze 
gobbler. 

'^I am sorry, old man," said Hanks when the case 
was dismissed, ^' but three months w^as as little as I 
ccJuld give you." 

They led him away after a while to the jail behind 
the court-house, and the old man sat down desolately 
on a bench against the wall, in the common cell with 
his fellow-prisoners. 



94 

They were a kindly crew enough, these jolly jail- 
birds whom he found himself among when at last the 
door was closed upon them, and they soon came to let 
him alone as he wished them to do. All day long he 
would sit in his corner unheeding them, and at night 
when they were asleep he would lie awake, thinking, 
thinking. 

Sometimes Billy came to see him, bringing a plug 
of tobacco to keep him company, or a little fine-cut 
for the old man's pipe. But these little kindnesses 
seemed to make little impression upon him; he only 
sat just the same when Billy was gone, thinking, 
thinking. 

There was a long stretch of years back of this, the 
old man's evil hour, which might have unburdened 
themselves for him, but somehow, now he thought but 
dimly of them, even the days of his far distant youth, 
whose tender memories rise to the top like rich cream 
when the milk of life has soured. He had loved to 
linger upon them, those far away days when life was 
young, but now the old man's retrospect extended no 
further back than the throbbing time of last year's 
spring. 

Yes, it must have begun in the spring-time, that 
belated budding of love's hope in the old man's 
bosom, which had commenced in his delight and 
ended in his undoing — the early spring-time, when 
the peach blossoms were gay against the wall of Mrs. 
Citron's shop, and even poor dirty Mugginsville was 
beautiful with the glory of returning life. Yes, it 
began in the spring, and the old man remembered 
that the May-pop vine which grew and sprawled 



95 

against the dividing fence 'twixt his own small yard 
and Em'ly's was then only a young thing whose 
delicate tendrils he had to lift out of the way of his 
whitewash brush. That May-pop vine was like him- 
self, the old man had told EmMy once, with its roots 
on his side the fence, and its ^' hankerings" on hers. 
And these same '^ hankerings " of his, alns^ what had 
they cost him, poor old man ! 

He had felt their first thrill, perhaps, when he sat 
on his little front gallery that early spring morning 
and watched Em'ly moving into the cabin so close to 
his own that they seemed a tiny pair of twins, set 
down to play in the midst of the dust and dirt of the 
straggling street. Somehow it had touched a tender 
chord in the old man's heart to see a comely woman 
briskening about with a broom in that comfortable, 
definite way which only women know. It reminded 
him of what he had once hoped for of the wife of his 
dead and gone youth. But she had been long ago 
dead and gone then, too, the wife of his youth, and 
when death came to claim her for his own, all that he 
found was a scant shroud-ful of skin and bones. 
Em'ly now as he had gazed upon her, proved a fine, 
fat, comely woman whose voluminous turban ed head 
crowned a fiice ample as a harvest moon's, with her 
overflowing sides running quite over the belt line and 
resting upon the spreading hips below, with that gen- 
erous prodigality which a bounteous nature likes 
sometimes to show. 

As the old man looked back upon it now his 
chance of ever convincing Em'ly that one little cabin 
would be big enough for the two of them, must have 



96 

beeu a hopeless one from the start, handicapped as he 
was by age and infirmity, and yet, how tenaciously 
had he clung to it ! And was this to be the end ? 

Often and often thro' the long night watches he 
fancied he heard the turn of Emily's key in the door 
and her step on the unsteady cabin floor as he had 
heard them many a time during his year's worship of 
her. Sometimes too he heard tlie dreary dribble of 
water, and remembered the two leaking faucets in the 
rickety tub cistern which split in twain the dividing 
fence, and stretched a wooden gutter, like a thin 
brown shaky arm to each of the two conjoined cabins. 
How tenderly his thoughts had dwelt once upon this 
existent bond of union between his own home and 
Em'ly's, but what did it profit him now that when 
the long hot summer days piled the dust high on the 
housetops, and no rain fell in all the dirty little city^ 
what did it profit liim that he had gone thirsty so that 
the faucet on the other side of the fence might not be 
empty? And then those long first fall days when the 
early nipping cold had kindled into brighter flame the 
smouldering fire on his wide heartli and sent a thin 
wisp of smoke curling from Em'ly^s round-mouthed 
chimney — he remembered these too. He remembered 
something else too that smote him thro' the long days 
and nights of thinking ; for in all Em'ly's little grass- 
grown yard never a stick of wood was to be seen, 
tho' the smoke from her chimney waned not, and her 
commodious basket which went with her empty in 
the mornings returned always laden at even-tide after 
her day's cooking. Poor old man, poor old man ! 

Was he dreaming, or did he hear Em'ly calling to 



97 

liim as she had called to him that New Year's eve? 
^^ Isham, Ishain ! " He turned his head over on his 
cot to shut out the ghost of a sound which haunted 
him. He had been glad enough to hear it once, how- 
ever, and to see lier too, that night, standing by the 
little fence with the street liglit shining on her face 
and a big brown bundle in her arms. 

" Want to ax you to do me a favor," she had said, 
and by and by she had handed up to him not a parcel, 
but a big, fat, fluttering turkey. 

^* Miss Lou gin it to me," she had said, ^^ Miss 
Lou Wilson, whar I cook at, an' bein' I's gwine to 
have comp'ny tomorrer I lowed I'd ax you to kill 
him and clen liim fur me, an' arter he's cooked an' 
served I'll pass you over de bones an' j'ints fur to 
'commodate youse'f wid." 

He kept hearing her voice saying the words over 
and over again. Surely none heard but himself, as he 
lay there alone in the dark? Over and over again, 
over and over again; but dusky wings fanned the old 
man's cheeks, and by and by he slept. 

" Isham, old man ! " He was not dreaming this 
time to be sure, and he opened his eyes to see the pale 
daylight creeping thro' the little grated window, and 
Billy, big and kindly, leaning over him. 

'^ It's all right now, old man," he said. '' Your 
time is up, and I have come to ask your forgiveness 
for my part in that performance three months ago. I 
ought to have known better then, but she— I under- 
stand now." 

The old man scarcely heard, but the sheriff's key 
grated in the lock once more — and this was freedom ! 



98 

The strong light in the corridor blinded him, but 
he thought some one was coming toward him. The 
old man stood aside to let her pass, but she came quite 
up to him, took his hand in hers, and called him by 
name. It was Em'ly. 

" I done come fur you, Isham, honey," she said. 

The three months of repentance had softened her 
voice, and her woman's heart too, let us suppose, for 
there was a wedding in the neat little cabin on her 
side of the fence that night. Justice Hanks performed 
the ceremony, and Billy gave the bride away, and 
carved the big turkey which he had himself provided 
for the bountiful board. 

"■ You must take better care of the old man, now 
that you have got him on your side of the fence, 
Aunt Em'ly," said young Hanks, when he told her 
good-night. 

She looked reproachfully at him as she took the 
old man's crooked bony hand in her round plump 
one. '' Don't you, honey, don't you," she said with 
tears in her eyes, "don't you pesticate de oP man 
now — my ol' man whose shoe-latches you an' me is 
not wuthy to on loose." 

" Amen," said Billy from the doorway, and the 
two were left alone in the dawning of another spring. 




t)9 



At The Station. 



fHE lowering clouds had begun to empty them- 
selves with a dreary drizzle by the time the 
little dirty train reached Temple, and when 
Anna got out she was almost glad of the dampness 
in her face. Both the conductor and the porter were 
busy with the numerous parcels of a party of young 
girls whose gay chatter had made them quite con- 
spicuous during tire journey, so Anna had to make 
two trips to the waiting-room before she got her own 
baggage off. She put her telescope down in a vacant 
seat in the corner by a window, while she went back 
for her bag and lunch-box. She ran a little nervously 
across the platform, dragging her umbrella under her 
arm, and having a vague dread that she would not 
find her telescope when she returned. It had not 
been moved, however, and she put it down on the 
floor and sank down into the vacant seat dejectedly. 
The journey had not been a pleasant one. It had 
seemed to Anna that the dead level of the Texas 
plains depressed her. The sky touched the earth at 
too close an horizon to-day, the dull grey above 
melting into the dull grey below, leaving no vistas. 



100 

The clumps of mesquite and scriih oak lost their 
green in the general clullness; the sheep in the pas- 
tures huddled together, cold and shivering. The whole 
aspect was gloomy. Tlic cliill of tlie east wind crept 
into the badly-warmed and illy-ventilated coacli, and 
it had been in vain for Anna to l)utton her well-worn 
cloak uj) close about her throat : her feet and limbs 
were cold, though her face was feverishly hot. 

The whole thing had set her head Xn aching, and 
she j)ressed it against the soiU'd pane now, looking 
out across the wet plains liopelessly. Now and tlien 
the door of the waiting room opened as a newcomer 
entered, and the sliarp gusts of wind that came in 
from the drear ()utside made her shiver. Within, in 
one corner of the spacious room, two boys were deal- 
ing out plug tobacco, ham sandwiches and coffee at 
an oil-cloth-covered lunch-counter. Poor, ill-fed 
women with dirty children and crying l)abies huddled 
about the stove, making frequent trips to the leaky 
water-tank with its rusty tin cup. Cow-boys with 
high-heeled boots and clinking spurs, walked rest- 
lessly about the room or stood and steamed their 
damp clothes before the lire. A Mexican UiiiKf/c 
vender who occupied the seat next Anna's, sat dozing 
with his arms folded over his smoking basket. The 
commingled odor of the damp shucks, greasy meat 
and steamed meal was sickening, but the girl felt 
almost too tired to move, and there seemed small 
chance of her getting another seat. A thin-chested, 
\vatery-eyed youth, with a soiled bandage covering 
half of his cankered mouth, was cracking pecans be- 
tween his knuckles and flipping the hulls into the 



101 

saw-dust-box cuspidor across the aisle. Anua felt a 
twinge of pain every time a nut cracked, and now 
and then unconsciously pressed her fingers nervously 
against her throbbing temples. Outside the cars 
were switching back and forth, clanking and whist- 
ling, and the porters were tossing and tumbling 
trunks noisily on the soggy platform. 

Life seemed to Anna utterly and altogether deso- 
late, and she closed her eyes by and by to shut out 
the hideous, sordid details of it just around her. 
There are moments rare enough to most of us, thank 
God, when we seem to lose the connecting link which 
binds us in the chain of pulsing, breathing humanity, 
and leave us stranded upon an island Avhence we may 
see only the intricate mechanism of life^s hideous 
reality. Such a moment had come to Anna Kinloch, 
and when her closed lids turned her gaze inward, the 
tears trickled beneath her thin lids helplessly. It 
seemed to her tliat though her life had been one suc- 
cession of battles, she had never known many vic- 
tories, and all of them had left her some dead to bury ; 
but it did not make her defeat any easier now to re- 
flect that it was far from being the only one she had 
ever experienced. It did not help her to know that 
there had been extenuating circumstances in her favor. 
She had only taken the school on a venture, and the 
odds had been against her from the start. She had 
been too quiet, too reserved, too cultured, in fact, for 
the poor hard-featured narrow-minded settlers whose 
children she had tried to teach in the little bare Texas 
town that made scarce a blot on the spreading prairie. 
The children who had been brave enough to come to 



102 

school to her, sat and stared at her over their desks, 
their eyes big with fear and wonder : the women, 
poor, hard-worked, weary things, came to their doors 
to look after her as she passed, and the men stopped 
their teams and forgot to lift their hats when they 
saw her wandering alone about the prairies with her 
flower-press or her stone hammer in her hand. It 
only made the memory of all this harder now to re- 
flect that she might have met the children's awe- 
struck, lielpless gaze half-way and satisfied it: that 
she could have gone to the little bare houses some- 
times and sat with the tired women and held their 
babies maybe, and talked with them about their work, 
which was all they knew% poor things : that she might 
have spoken a word or two now and then to the men, 
to show them she was neither dazed nor daft. These 
were the things she might have done and had not. 
Instead, she found herself driven more and more 
upon herself, and when mid-term came, the burden 
had grown too great, and she had shifted it. She had 
told the few children who were left staring at her, 
that they might pack up their books and go home, 
and the poor things had been too scared to ask why. 
There was nothing else to do but to lock up the 
school house and give the key to the old blacksmith 
next door, fiom whom she had obtained it in Sep- 
tember. 

" This here place ain't fittin' fur you, Miss," he 
had said to her that first day, and he only repeated it 
with a little look of pity, when she told him good-by. 
He was the nearest approach to a friend she had made 
during her stay. 



103 

Old Mrs. Gaddy, with whom she boarded, had 
shut her lips close when Anna told her she was going 
away. The five dollars which the girl paid her 
weekly was almost all that lay between the old woman 
and starvation, but deep down in her heart the poor 
thing felt a sense of relief. 

'' Miss Kinloch's ways ain^t our ways/' she had 
told her neighbors when they came first to gossip with 
her at the back door about her boarder, and that was 
as much as she had ever learned of the quiet woman 
who occupied her best room and whom she seldom 
saw except at meals. 

Anna thought of all this now, and though her 
defeat had not been very much of one, it pained her 
nevertheless. At thirty women begin to feel a little 
loosening of the tension, sometimes to lose faith in 
themselves, and Anna wondered if there were not as 
many mistakes behind her as there seemed to be 
dangers ahead. She looked back upon her years of 
struggle and called them wasted. She had striven to 
force her little stream of life into broader currents 
than it was made for, only to see its waters trickle 
and fall were the rocks were rough or the banks were 
steep. It was that comprehension of her impotence 
before that had sickened her and driven her to Texas 
for a brace up. But the current was too feeble to 
run over so broad a bed, and she had made no effort. 
Perhaps it did not matter, after all ; she was alone in 
the world, and one failure could not count for much 
in the whole universe, she thought. 

The tears still trickled down her cheeks, but she 
had ceased to start when the boy cracked his pecans 
8 



104 

or when the door opened. The man with tamales got 
up and went out : a train had come in, and passengers 
were crowding off and on. The stools around the 
lunch-counter were filled with people, and the boys 
were busy filling plates and rattling cups. Anna 
opened her lunch-box listlessly, and was not surprised 
to find that Mrs. Gaddy had put up only enough for 
one meal. 

"She owed me so much and no more," said the 
girl to herself, with a little hard smile. 

She set the box down on top of her telescope and 
went over to the counter for a cup of coffee. When 
she held out her hand to receive it, a man on the 
stool just beside her gave an order. Anna turned 
sharply, facing him and letting the cup fall heavily 
upon the counter, whence it rolled noisily to the floor. 

" Look what you're about, won't you ? " said the 
boy sharply. 

*^ Look what you are about, youngster," said the 
man, springing to his feet and leaning over the coun- 
ter. The boy winced and picked up the cup sulkily. 

"Can I assist you, madame?" the man continued, 
turning to Anna and lifting his hat. 

"Don't you know me, Robert Deering?" she 
asked. 

"Why, it's Anna — Anna Kinloch, still?" he said 
pleasantly, holding out his hand. 

She felt with a sudden thrill what a big, strong 
hand it was that she put hers into, and was not sur- 
prised a moment later to find herself following Deer- 
ing to a neat little cloth covered table by a window in 
the corner. He had the same masterful way to him 



105 

that she knew so well in the old days, and it pleased 
her now as much as it had displeased her then, so she 
sat down at his bidding and waited for him to serve 
her. 

" It\s nicer here/^ he said, pouring her a cup of 
coffee from the steaming pot which the boy brought 
at his direction. 

^^ But you don't know how glad I am to see you, 
Miss Anna," he went on, filling his own cup and cut- 
ting a wedge from his sandwich; ^^ it seems quite like 
old times, doesn't it? And I don't believe you've 
changed one bit." 

'^ Neither have you," she said, looking at him 
steadily for a moment before she spoke. 

'^ Oh, never mind me, please," he said, hastily, 
almost nervous under her steady gaze. '^ We shall 
not mention my grey hairs, for instance, and I shall 
promise not to reproach you for the part you played 
in their production. I'm too glad to see you for that, 
and I only wish — " he began, looking through the 
window toward the sleeper that stood on the track 
without. 

^' Oh, don't, Robert, please," she interrupted him 
eagerly. 

The people at the lunch counter had begun to dis- 
perse, and the two had the waiting-room almost to 
themselves. ''Don't reproach me : I cannot bear it. 
You do not know how I have suffered, you do not 
know how glad I am to see you. It seems like one 
more chance of life left to me. I love you — " her 
words were coming rapidly, and though he looked up 
sharply she did not stop. " I love yon, Robert Deer- 



106 

ing, I love you. 1 loved you long ago, and I strove 
against it. I thought it was strength that made me : 
I know now it was weakness. I am stronger now, 
strong enough to tell you that I was not honest with 
you in those old days, that I was untrue to myself, 
and the falsehood has darkened all my life. I have 
been walking in the shadow." 

She would have kept on, her grey eyes kindled, 
and her cheeks flushed, but Deering had risen to his 
feet. He thought, as he looked down into her upturned 
face, that she had never been so beautiful as she was 
then. He held his watch open in his palm, and with- 
out upon the platform the conductor hallooed, " All 
aboard ! " 

Anna heard the watch ticks like the thumping of 
great heart-beats. From between her tense lids she 
saw the grey hairs rise and fall on Deering's temples: 
she heard his quick breath stirring his mustache. 
From the window of the Pullman which was begin- 
ning slowly to move, a woman in a grey suit poked 
out her shapely head crowned with its smooth, fair 
braids. Deering lifted his hat and smiled back at her. 

" That is my wife, Anna," he said gently. 

For a moment he held the girl's hand in his, and 
in another he had stepped upon the rear end of the 
receding train, and was gone out of her life forever. 
Anna saw him like one in a dream, but the hoarse 
shriek of the departing whistle roused her. 

In one moment she had broken down the reserve 
of years, and the overflow of pent-up passion left her 
stunned as by a blow. She stood dazed and helpless, 
leaning against the table where Deering had left her, 



107 

staring out through the open doorway. A man who 
had been walking back and forth on the platform 
came in by and by and stood quite close to her, his 
cap in hand, before she seemed aware of his presence. 

'^ Can I get your baggage checked, or anything, 
Miss?^^ he said, politely. '^ B'lieve you said you's 
goin' north, an' your train will pass in a few minutes 
now." 

Anna winced as she looked at him. He was the 
brakesman on the local train which had brought her 
in that morning; she remembered him by a pleasant 
little way he had of wrinkling his nose when he 
smiled. 

^' If you will put ray things back on your train, 
please, I shall be glad. I am going back with you 
this afternoon." 

The words seemed to have come from her without 
her own volition almost, but the sound of them 
strengthened her. 

^' That's right," said the man, soothingly, trying 
not to show the surprise which he felt. " Better not 
turn loose once you've put your hands to the plow. 
Some of 'em was sayin' to me this mornin' they didn't 
know what they'd do 'bout a school now you'd left. 
They said you certainly made the children learn, what- 
ever else you did." It was faint praise enough, but 
Anna grasped it eagerly. 

^' Do you really think I can succeed if I try again ? " 
she asked simply. 

'' I know you can," he said with a man's decisive- 
ness. ^^ Now, if I's in your place," he went on kindly, 
" I'd go in the ladies' room there and rest up a bit. 



108 

There ain't many 'coinmodations but it's better'n out 
liere." 

She followed him across the room gratefully. '^ I 
tell you/' he said, as he held the door open for her, 
'' s'pose you let me fetch a pitcher of hot water from 
the luncii stand over there. It'll do you the most 
good in the world. My wife says hot water beats all 
the patent medicines goin'. What do you say?" 

'^ Oh, thank you so much ; you are very kind," 
and there were tears in Anna's eyes as she spoke. 
They Avere tears of repentance this time, and they soft- 
ened her. 

The steaming water upon her face and the back of 
her neck refreshed her beyond measure, and by the 
time she had recoiled her heavy liair she felt like a 
new person. 

The clouds had driven on westward, and by the 
time the brakesman came for her baggage, the sky was 
beautifully clear. The great prairies fairly gleamed, 
and the trees glistened with the sunlight on their wet 
leaves. The whole vast plain was one realm of beauty, 
as boundless as hope, as full of happy possibilities. 
Anna opened her window to drink in the draughts of 
pure ozone and felt the rich blood of a new life 
quicken within her. Her way lay clear before her, 
fair as the sky and limitless as the horizon. 

The friendly brakesman was on hand to help her 
off w^ien the train stopped. ^^I'm goin' to sen' my 
little girl to school to you," he said. 

It was quite dark when Anna got to Mrs. Gaddy's, 
and she found the old woman taking her solitary sup- 
per in the little kitchen. 



109 

She hustled about, startled and disturbed by the 
girPs sudden appearance. 

^^ You ain't met with no accident?" she asked 
sharply. 

*' No/' said Anna, " I changed my mind about 
going, that is all, and I've come back to stay this time, 
if you will let me, please, Mrs. Gaddy." 

" That's as you're a minter," said the old woman 
ungraciously. '^ Your room's as you left it. Better 
go in there tell I can cook vou up sumpnuther fittin' 
to eat." 

" I should be so glad if you would just let me sit 
here and share your supper, please, Mrs. Gaddy," 
Anna said, taking otf her hat and cloak. 

She found a plate and knife and fork on the shelf, 
and sat down on the other side of the deal table with- 
out waiting for the old woman to answer. 

Mrs. Gaddy had a vague suspicion that the girl 
was daft, and scarce ate a morsel for wonderment. 

When the meal was over, Anna turned up her 
sleeves and poured the water from the steaming kettle 
into the dish-pan. 

'^ You must let me wash up dishes for you this 
evening, Mrs. Gaddy, if you don't mind," she said. 
"You see, I am beginning life over again, and it will 
remind me of when I was a little child, and mother 
used to tuck up my sleeves and stand me up in a chair 
beside her while she washed the dishes. Now and 
then she would give me a little piece from the scald- 
ing water to wipe, and it pleased me to think I was 
helping her." 

" Your mother dead ? " asked Mrs. Gaddy. 



no 

^^ Yes/' said Anna, softly. '^ 1 am all alone in the 
world." 

'^ Why didn't you tell me before, honey, why 
didn't you?" And the old woman put her arm about 
the girl's shoulders and looked at her with tears in her 
dim eyes. ^' Seem like I'd 'a knowed better how to 
^a treated you if you'd a-told me." 

She sat down by and by and got out her knitting, 
watching the girl eagerly as she went back and forth 
with the dishes. She was thinking of her own little 
girl, a slim, peaked, puny thing, who died when she 
was no higher than the table. 

She told Anna about her after a while, dwelling 
on the meagre reminiscences that made up all that was 
left of her now. " Somehow you put me in mind of 
her when you's talkin' 'bout helpin' your Ma, and I 
can't help thinkin' what my little gal mought 'a been 
to me when I see you gittin' roun' so pyeart." 

It had not been hard to find the way to one heart, 
Anna thought, as she went to sleep in her old bed that 
night. 

She surprised the blacksmith by an early call for 
the key next morning, and had the schoolroom swept 
and a fire burning long before it was time to ring the 
first bell. Most of the poor little scared children, who 
never understood why they had been sent home the 
day before, were on hand when school opened, and 
before the week was out the desks were full. 

^* We've got a new teacher," they said, and Anna 
smiled gratefully into their happy faces. 

'^ You are gettin' on better. Miss, fur all the place 
ain't fittin' fur you," said the blacksmith. 

" I was not fit for the place, before," Anna said. 




■ hi, Katton, /r//"— Page 113. 



Ill 



Neighbors. 



fHERE are two little houses on the corner where 
the ragged street turns bayou-ward — two little 
houses just alike, showing each a sombre-grey 
face to the world, with a couple of brown-shuttered 
windows looking like a pair of sad eyes out upon the 
passers-by. Two small brown-trimmed doors split 
the space between the windows, a narrow strip of 
gallery runs along the front, and at the end a rickety 
flight of steps turns sharply, breaking through the 
few feet of terrace down to the grass-grown banquette. 
Against the corner of each house leans a straggling 
china tree, overshadowing the steps and rotting the 
shingles on the roof. A little red brick chimney -top 
breaks the roof line midway, and the two spirals of 
smoke that curl therefrom twine and intertwine their 
wreaths or swerve and drift apart, according to the 
veering of the wind. 

Twin houses they are, making a landlord of Alix, 
the little black-browned, thick-lipped groceryman on 
the levee, who comes himself every month to collect 
the rent, and so close together are they that once the 
Old Madame leaning over the banisters of the one 



112 

might have shaken hands with her neighbor on the 
gallery of the other. Not that Madame ever thought 
of doing such a thing, however — oh, no! 

" One must be kind to her, yes, the poor Mees 
Maree," Madame would say, with a wave of her palms 
and a shrug of her shoulders. 

'^ But — one must be kind to her, by the reason 
that we must have always charity and she is my 
neighbor, not? If I have a little plain sewing once 
a wdiile it is just as well I give it to her; it makes 
nothing to me, and she must live. I have plenty, me, 
with my flowers and my birds and the flfty dollars 
mbnsieur sends me every month — oh, dear I " Some- 
how Old Madame always sighed Avhen she spoke of 
monsieur. "Yes, I have plenty, me, and Mees Maree 
has nothing, poor thing. What makes a bit of a leg 
boiled in lard to me when I may have a whole 
turkey ? And if I pass it to her out of the window, 
why should not a slice of bread and a sip of wine go 
along to keep it company and make the roses bloom 
in her pale cheeks, the poor thing! " 

There were plenty of people whom Madame might 
tell these things to ! Aunt Sophie, perhaps, when she 
drew her cart up close by the window-side and leaned 
out to pass Madame lier little bunch of onions or a 
tiny measure of peas, wdth now and then in the spring- 
time, a sprig of cress from the convent marsh ; or the 
tailoress maybe, who lived in the next block, and who 
came and went as clockwork, with her armful of rip- 
ping and stitching, or the men in blue blouses, friends 
all, who stopped on the banquette in the evenings on 
their way home to chat with the old woman as she 



113 

sat on the little porch behind the vines and the flower- 
boxes, swinging to and fro in the big chair. 

She had been pretty once, this Old Madame, and 
she was pictnresque still, with her dark hair, wrinkled 
skin and bright eyes. Her hair had been black, of 
course, when she had any, and now that it was gone 
she made up for it by wearing a braid and a frizzed 
front of the old hue. There was usually a red rose 
pinned low on her neck, just touching the lace of her 
white dress, when Madame appeared in the evenings, 
and her high old voice made the whole square gay as 
she spoke to every passer-by, bidding her toll of 
gossip, or calling to the little terrier that was her sole 
companion in the lonely house. 

^' He is so smart, that dog! lei, Ratton, ici!^'' 
and Madame would wave her cane like a director's 
baton while the dog danced up and down the narrow 
gallery, and Miss Mary leaned over the banister to 
see. " Ah, ha, ah, ha, my little Ratton ! " the old 
woman would say. '^ He is my baby, my only one 
now," and interrupting herself, she would lean for- 
ward to put her wrinkled lips on the dog's nose. 
^'See, he loves me, heinf Oh, my little one, my little 
one ! " And the little fellow would lay his head upon 
her knees and look up into her face with patient ten- 
derness in his bright eyes. '^ See how he loves me! 
He looks at me with his eyes big, like my own little one, 
my baby, only her eyes were blue, blue and so beau- 
tiful, like monsieur's, O dear ! " and the Old Madame 
would sigh and lay her head on Ratton's again. 

Once, when Madame spoke of her blue-eyed baby. 
Miss Mary leaned forward eagerly and pressed her 



114 

thin hands together. ^' And did your baby have blue 
eyes too?" she asked. 

" Too ! " poor Miss Mary ! 

"Did I not tell you?" said the Old Madame, her 
voice brightening and a softer light coming into her 
eyes as she spoke. " Ah, you should have seen her, 
my blue-eyed little one. Monsieur's eyes she had, 
dark blue, like violets in the shade, with her long 
lashes sweeping over. God was good, not? to give 
me so beautiful a little one, me with my black skin 
and my black hair like a crow. O dear! O dear! 
But we were so gay then, monsieur and I and baby, 
and in the evenings he would come up from the shop, 
looking so fine, my beautiful husband, and I would 
dress the little one all in white, and put a rose in my 
hair like this, and look so nice, O dear ! But we were 
happy, and monsieur, how proud he was, and how he 
would puff, puff his cigar, and take baby on his knee 
like this — ki, Ratton, ici ! Up, petite, up! ah, ha, ah, 
ha ! — he would take baby on his knee like this, and trot, 
trot, trot her up and down with his big legs, till she 
would crow and laugh and pull at his mustache, O dear 
me ! " and Madame would crow and coo herself in an 
ecstacy of memories, and always end by wiping her 
eyes with the corner of her embroidered handkerchief. 

Of this period of her existence, indeed. Old 
Madame seemed never to tire of telling. In fact, she 
had dwelt npon it and magnified it till this one mem- 
ory may have swallowed up all that went before and 
all that came after, perhaps. 

Poor Madame! Did it swallow up the memory 
of the old first husband — the bald-pated, watery-eyed 



115 

first husband who had brought her, a pretty young 
girl, from her cozy home behind the gay little Parisian 
glove-shop, to make her weigh coffee and sugar and 
meat in his dirty corner grocery ; to make her pinch 
and grind till her hands were rough and her face 
wrinkled, and her heart was starved and she hated the 
ugly, wizened old face of her master? Had she forgot- 
ten, the Old Madame? Perhaps, but when the watery 
eyes were closed at last forever, and Madame was left 
alone in the little shop with the big bank account and 
her starved heart, is it any wonder that the handsome 
young bookkeeper stepped down from his high stool 
one morning to find a glass of iced wine and Madame's 
self awaiting him in the pleasant sitting-room behind 
the vines? Is it any wonder? What mattered a 
slight discrepancy in their ages, with the odd years 
on Madame's side of the account? The shrewd young 
clerk w^as expert in manipulating the trial-balance, 
and he became monsieur number two, reckoning his 
youth and his beauty against her love and her bank 
account. 

Then was the spring-time of life come again to 
the old woman, and she forgot to pinch and to grind 
and to save, and grew young herself along with her 
young husband and her young child and her young 
love. 

Is it any wonder then that the old monsieur was 
forgotten ? Any wonder that the memory of those 
happy days blotted the past? Did it blot out what 
came after, poor Madame? Could time or eternity do 
that? Could all the love left in her heart heal the 
misery of it? And would the vision of a sweet 



IK) 

young maiden grown to womanhood among the 
Howers of heaven conij>ensate her for the little grass- 
grown mound hack yonder in the old home? Who 
can say by what means He tempers tiic wind t«» the 
shorn lamb? Was there not enough besiiles to deepen 
the wrinkles in Madanie's old cheeks and tighten the 
chords aroun<l her heart ? 

'' It was only by the reason that monsieur was 
young," she wouM say sometimes to Alix when he 
oame for the rent. Alix had swept the little gh>ve- 
shop of Madame's father in tlic old l^arisiaii days, and 
knew as well as Madame herself how the color had 
faded from her cheek and the lightness from her stej>. 
*' Yes, monsieur was young I I must j)ray that I for- 
give him, not? We must have always charity, charity, 
charity, Alix. Monsicin- was young, and he forgot 
me. That is all. I was old, (dd even then, l)ut I was 
a woman. There is the difference. Women never 
forget, never. They remember with their hearts. 
But monsieur, is he not kind to me. He pays your 
rent, is it not, Alix? And he h'ts me have my wine 
and my birds and my Howers and plenty to divide 
with the pool-. Isn't that enouuh for an ohl woman 
like me ? " 

But Alix only i-olled his l)lack iye> up under his 
heavy lids and turned down the corners of his thick 
lips for a moment. Then he bade Madame adieu, and 
went to collect Miss Mary's rent. Miss Mary was 
more than occasionally behind with her rent, poor 
thing, and Alix would scold and roll his black eyes 
under his lids, while she would stamp her foot and 
beg and weep and wait until he was gone to go out 



117 

and lean over the banisters with her swollen eyes and 
her towsled hair to tell Madame what a hard world 
this was to live in. 

Years came and went, but their passing brought 
little change to the two houses; the china trees at the 
corner grew larger and the patch of rotten shingles 
spread beneath, and that was all. Yet within the one 
Miss Mary's cheeks grew thinner and more pinched, 
and within the other the Madame's grew yellower and 
more wrinkled. The old woman leaned more heavily 
upon her staiF as she walked, and sometimes whole 
days would pass when no smoke curled from her little 
chimney's mouth. The bird in the cage would pick 
drearily among yesterday's seed husks, and Madame 
herself only hobbled to the door in her bedgown for 
the loaf which the baker had left and down into the 
cellar for a bottle of vin ordinaire. 

But by and by the little houses seemed to grow 
closer and closer together, and if Madame saw Ratton 
burrowing under the dividing fence she forgot to call 
him back, though she always wondeied afterward 
where he got the bones and bits that made almost his 
daily meals, now that her rheumatism was so bad. 
She would wait too, in the mornings, till a little 
stealthy tread had died from her own gallery and she 
heard Miss Mary's door close softly, to go out for the 
baker's loaf, but she always wondered, the shrewd 
Madame, what passing friend had left the new laid 
Qgg or the little breakfast-pudding which she grew to 
look for along with the bread. She still told her 
friends that they ^' must have always charity " when 
they shrugged their shoulders or nodded their heads 



118 

toward Miss Mary's closed door, and still gave Alix 
an extra dollar or two now and then and told him to 
be good to the poor tiling if she liad not all the rent 
readv for him. Poor Madame ! The shadows were 
lengtiiening fast, and she drew ('h)ser and ('h)ser to the 
banisters under the china tree, and leaned more and 
more toward the other little house. 

*' This was my baby's first shoe," she would say 
sometimes, as she held out a little ju-rfunicd package 
for Miss Mary to see. And then Mi>> Mary would 
forget again, and fumble in her bosom for a little yel- 
low curl tied with blue ribbon, and both their hearts 
would bleed anew and both their eyes would grow red 
with weeping. 

One evening as they sat thus, so near that they 
migiit have touched each other, the Old Madame held 
a little casket in her lap, and now and then she opened 
and shut it gently, or caressed it tenderly with her 
wrinkled brown fingers. At the same time, beside 
her own little banisters, Miss Mary sat holding a little 
packet, now and then dropping a tear u])on the pic- 
tured face that stared up at her behind its oval ot 
glass. Was it chance or was it fate that thus they sat 
side by side, these two? Who can say, for it was the 
throbbing time of early spring, and both their hearts 
were stirred with the nu'inory of long-ago love. 

'* He was very handsome, my baby's father," said 
Miss Mary softly by and by, as she rubbed the blurred 
glass with her thin work-hardened palm. 

"A-a-hl" said Madame, and her voice was a 
prayer, though a gleam of yellow shot from her dim 

eyes, " not handsomer than monsieur, Mees Maree, 



119 

not handsomer than my beautiful husband. Wait till 
I show you/' 

'^ And I, Madame/^ said Miss Mary. 

Madame opened the casket with a click, and both 
leaned forward eagerly. They were very near to- 
gether, the two hands, and as Miss Mary looked into 
Madame's she saw the smiling face of her baby's 
father; as Madame looked into Miss Mary's she saw 
the beautiful face of monsieur. Was it chance or 
fate? 

'' O God ! " said Miss Mary, and the two pic- 
tures fell face downward, crushed and broken in the 
weeds that grew and sprawled upon the dividing 
fence. 

And the Old Madame? Where now was the 
curse she had held in her heart so long for the woman 
who had stolen monsieur's love? Lift up your voice, 
Madame, and curse her face to face. She must have 
been pretty once with her yellow hair and her blue 
eyes; she must have been young not very long ago, 
have you forgotten, Madame ? Curse her now though 
the hair is grey and the eyes are faded; have you 
forgotten, Madame? 

Poor Madame ! They were Miss Mary's arms that 
picked her up and laid her on the bed behind the 
curtains by and by, but she stirred not nor spoke. 
The nimble old tongue had lost its cunning forever, 
the poor tottering old limbs were paralyzed. 

The days are passing still over the heads of the 

two neighbors, but one little house covers them both 

now. Miss Mary flits almost gayly about among the 

flowers and birds on Madame's gallery, or chats with 

9 



120 

the friends when they stop on the banquette in the 
evenings, but oftenest she sits beside the okl woman's 
bed singing and sewing, and the poor dim eyes that 
watch for her coming are soft with love and tenderness. 
Who indeed shall say how He may temper the 
wind to the shorn lamb ? 



^^^^^ 



121 



Another Valentine. 



<^ LINGERED a moment with my hand on the 
"§% latch, leaning upon the gate, and looking over 
^ at the straggling flower-beds and the little grass- 
grown walks which led to the old house beyond. A 
poor, tumbled-down house it was, to be sure, yet how 
much a part of Miss Letty's very self it seemed, grow- 
ing grey just as she grew grey, in little patches where 
the rain had stained and the paint had crumbled off. 
In the old garden, the cedars and boxwood had grown 
gnarled and woody, and cape-jessamines burst their 
young spring buds high on the ancient stock almost 
out of reach. Crepe-myrtles and altheas met in a 
tangled archway that led from the gate to the house, 
where honey-suckle and ivy clustered close around 
the eaves. 

There began a lively tapping on one of the win- 
dow-panes within as I loitered, and looking up, I saw 
Miss Letty shaking a slim thimbled finger at me. 

" Come in, child, do,^' she said, when I opened 
the door behind her, and poked my head in, " you'll 
catch your death out there on the damp ground, with- 
out your rubbers, too, I'll be bound." 



122 

" Why, Miss Letty, it is almost spring-time/' I 
said, with the door-knob still in my hand, '' and al- 
ready the young grass is beginning to peep up here 
and there, and I am sure there are pink tips swelling 
on the tea-roses. Please come and see/^ 

" Are you coming in, Eleanor ? " asked Miss Letty, 
in a tone of voice which w^ould have commanded 
obedience even if she had not called me Eleanor, in- 
stead of Nell, which latter is all that I ever hoped for 
from my friends. 

" What is it, Miss Letty, please?" I said, closing 
the door with a bang, wondering at the dear old lady\s 
unwonted excitement. 

" What do you suppose? '' she asked with a smile, 
as she folded her work, giving a little tap on top of 
it, and putting away her needle and thimble. 

" Not the — piano — " I began fearfully. 

But Miss Letty broke me off eagerly. ^* Yes, it is 
tho' Nell, just,'' she said, as she looked up at me over 
her steel- rimmed glasses, shaking her temple curls at 
me gayly. 

'' O Miss Letty ! Where is it ? " I cried, joyfully 
peering about as if I expected to see a piano hiding 
in every corner, or peeping out from under every chair. 

" What a little goose you are, Nell," said Miss 
Letty in her pleased little way. " It isn't bought yet 
you know, I only wanted you to recount the money 
with me to be sure there is enough, and then we shall 
see at once about getting the piano." 

" O you sweet Miss Letty," I cried, catching her 
in my arms and whirling her about with me till our 
heads were dizzy. 



123 

^^ Suppose some one had seen us, Nell, you silly 
child," Miss Letty remonstrated when she had got 
her breath. " How old are you anyway, nine ? ^' 

" Twice nine, Miss Letty, and ^ going on,' '' I said. 
^^But it makes me feel young again to think of hav- 
ing the piano at last." 

^^ At last, and you only eighteen/^ said Miss Letty 
a little wistfully. ^^ Heigho ! But never mind, I am 
to have it at last, as you say. Now I am going to 
get my strong box, and I want you to count the sav- 
ings over for me." 

One by one we spread out the bills, and piled up 
the coins till the little, round, marble-topped table 
was full of Miss Letty^s small hoard, and I looked at 
it all reverently, each piece becoming sacred to me 
when I thought of the years of privation and toil 
it had cost her. 

"Do you know what that is, Nell?" said Miss 
Letty, unfolding a silver dollar from its little wrapper 
of white paper. " That was for making your first 
short frock. You don't remember it — a white lawn 
with a pink leaf, and you looked for all the world 
when you had it on as if a shower of peach-blow pe- 
tals had fallen on you. I can see you now. And 
this yellow gold piece was for making your mother's 
wedding dress, think of it. A white silk it was, 
that stood alone when it was finished. And this was 
for making Mr. Pitman's last pepper-and-salt. Poor 
old man ! They buried him in it. He asked them 
to, the day before he died, because, as he said, it 
^ sot to him' better than anything he ever had on his 
back." 



124 

" What do you 'spose that little bit was for ? '' 
asked Miss Letty by and by, as she emptied a few 
small coins, all quarters and dimes and nickles out 
on the table, drawing them up together. '^ That was 
for making Mary Ann Perry's wedding dress. Tlie 
bargain was that I should only help, and get four dol- 
lars and six bits for my work. But you know how 
things are sometimes. If Mary Ann herself stuck 
needle in that lilac delaine of hers I never found it 
out, and after all, three ten was all I ever got for mak- 
ing it. Mary Ann was always close, even when she 
was a girl ; just for the world like her old father be- 
fore her. You've heard tell how d'reckly after the 
surrender folks had to go to work and hire negroes, 
allowing them a fourth of the crop as wages. Well, 
old man Runnells, Mary Ann's father that was, he 
honeyfugled many a poor ignorant negro into believ- 
ing that a fourth warn't enough, and caused them to 
leave good homes to go and work for a fifth with him. 
So you see Mary Ann come honestly by her shrewd- 
ness, and I reckon we ought to bear this in mind, and 
excuse it in her more than we are prone to do." 

Five hundred dollars was all the box contained, 
and every piece of it teeming with memories for dear 
Miss Letty — memories into which she had pricked 
with her busy needle the patient pattern of her life — 
memories that brought the tears into her old eyes now 
and then as she told of them, and into mine too as I 
listened. 

*^ Tell me all about the piano," I said to her once 
as I sat beside her watching her busy needle come and 
go, '^ tell me from the very beginning." 



125 

'^ Well, I don^t know the very beginning myself/' 
she had answered. ^^ I can't remember when I did 
not want a piano. But father wasn't rich you know, 
ever, and so I had to wait. He promised when I be- 
gan taking music lessons that I might have one f my 
teacher thought I had any talent, and I remember as 
if it were yesterday, how pleased he was at the end of 
the session, when I played ^ Home, Sweet Home,' with 
variations, and never lost a note. I got the silver music- 
medal too that night, don't you remember, I showed 
it to you once, with ^ perseverance ' engraved across 
the face ? Father was very proud of me, and the 
people all applauded, and Rob Taylor threw me a 
bouquet. It was all sweet-shrub and wild honey- 
suckle and yellow jessamine that he had plucked in 
the woods as he came along, but my ! I can smel 
them yet." 

When Miss Letty stooped down to bite off her 
thread, it was a tear that she wiped from her eye ? 

^^ What ever became of him. Miss Letty?" 
asked, poor, little, romantic soul that I was, forgetting 
my politeness, " what became of the boy that threw 
the flowers." 

^^What diiference does that make, child, I won- 
der," she said a little sharply for Miss Letty, I fancied. 
" Do you want me to tell you about the piano ? " 

" Oh, yes. Miss Letty, please," and she went on. 

" As I was saying when you interrupted me, father 
was very proud of me, and got Mr. Rogers to write 
to his commission merchant in New Orleans to see 
about a piano for me. But the war was coming on 
then, and we waited, and pretty soon it was come and 



126 

gone, and with it the money to bay the piano. Poor 
£itherl There was so many of us then to provide 
for, tho' I'm the only one of the family left now, 
dean- me I Dick never came back from the war, and 
mother died soon after, and the girls followed one by 
one. Somehow, there waru't any of 'em strong, and 
pretty soon father died. The little plantation had to 
go then to pay debts, poor lather, and tiiere was left 
('Illy the little ht»mc-place. 1 went to teaching music 
liit'U at the coUegt- — the old college, child, tliat stood 
behind the church by the laboratory well — but it 
warn't long before that burned. I rememl>er how I 
cried the night of the fire, but it was all because of 
the piano, the poor, battered, tuneless old thing that 
I had practiced on. Well, after the college wa- gone, 
there was no school of any kind in Mt. Lebanon for 
a long time, and there was nothing for me but sew- 
ing. I don't mean to complain, for I've always had 
plenty to do, and I made up my mind at the start that 
I would lay by a little every year till I had saved 
• ii'Uirh to buy a piano. It seems a long time to you 
< Lil.i. doesn't it? But God has been very good to me." 
Poor Misf! l^tty I 

There was not many pianos left in the whole town 
then ; the doctor's daughter had one, and Mrs. Rod- 
gers another, and there were one or two more among 
the old families, and at these we all loved to see Miss 
Letty sit, with a glad light in her dim old eyes, and 
her nimble lingers cha-^ing each other over the keys. 
Indeed, had not most of us learned our first dancing 
steps to Miss Letty 's playing? And surely there was 
music enough yet in her " Virginia Reel " and ** Sol- 



127 

dier's Joy " to set us all a-tingle to the tune of it, and 
we grew up looking forward, as for a great joy that 
was to come into our narrow lives, to an endless round 
of reels and cotillions, when Miss Letty should have 
a piano of her very own. 

We younger ones could not remember when Miss 
Letty had not made our " Sunday dresses " for us. 
But this, however, I think most of us accepted as a spec- 
ial favor vouchsafed to us just as we did the sugar- 
plums and tea-cake that we sometimes found in the 
pocket of a new lindsey frock at its first outing, com- 
fortably stored away here by Miss Letty to help us 
over the tedium of Sunday^s sermon. I can distinctly 
recall more than one occasion when I sat in my pew- 
corner discretely munching my pocket's treasure-trove, 
to the tune of " Am I a Soldier of the Cross.'' I was 
fired by the martial strains to buy a piano myself and 
present it to Miss Letty, when I grew up. 

Somehow, it seemed to me as I looked back upon it, 
that there had once been a time when all the hopes of 
the village had been centered around Miss Letty's 
piano. We had all heard our mothers say over and 
often that they would have Miss Letty in for a day's 
sewing, since it would give them a lift, and help along 
with the piano. Some of us had heard our fathers 
say that they would order an extra soft bit of stuif 
from the little factory that sent its brown smoke curl- 
ing up above the tree-tops beyond the tan-yard, and 
have Miss Letty make a suit. *^ It will wear better 
than ready-made clothes do," they would say, " and 
besides, it will count toward the piano." 

But gradually as our keen interest must have 



128 

waned, we all knew that the little spark of hope still 
glowed fresh and warm in Miss Letty's breast, and 
we respected it, even the yonnger ones, though we 
passed beyond the days of wide-eyed wonderment 
Avhen the rumble of a heavy wagon would send us 
running to the window to see if the piano were com- 
ing at last. And I think none of us quite forgave 
old Peter Smith for scoffing at Miss Letty's little 
hope. To be sure old Peter scoffed with impunity at 
everything in heaven and on earth, but when it came 
to Miss Letty, and in such a public way, that was 
more than the village people could submit to. It 
came about in this way, for we all heard of it ; one 
day as the little German shoemaker sat in the midst 
of his busy pegging, singing in his bright, cheery 
voice, so that all the town might hear, " Dere's a bet- 
ter time a-coming, Hallelujah !" old Peter had taken 
his pipe from his mouth, and, perhaps impressed with 
the enormity of his daring, had for once in his life 
spit quite clear of the store-gallery, to say to the 
crowd of loungers that hung about, ^^ Yes, there's a 
better time a-comin', but, plague-on-it, it's like Miss 
Letty's piano, it never gits here." 

I w^as thinking of just this while Miss Letty went 
to put the tin box away, and that I should like to be 
the first to tell old Peter when the piano came. 

Consumed with this devout desire, I got no fur- 
ther in my retrospect when I heard the little front 
gate creak on its hinges, and Miss Letty returned a 
moment later, bringing Mary Ann Perry in with her. 

Everybody in the village called her Mary Ann^ 
and we younger ones were no exceptions, elsewhere 



129 

than before her face, whose thin, sharp features under- 
neath her flapping sunbonnet were the butt of a 
perennial jest among us. 

^^ Don't you think your fire is mighty brisk for 
this time o' year, Letitia/' said Mary Ann, taking a 
half-way seat on the edge of her chair, and fanning 
herself with her sunbonnet. 

'^ I don^t know as I had thought of it, Mary Ann. 
Does the room seem close to you ?'^ asked Miss Letty, 
rising to lift a window. 

^'Oh, it warn't that I meant," interposed MaryAnn. 
^^ I guess I can stand as much heat as anybody, seein' 
I've been used to good fires all my life. I was only 
thinking times is mighty hard for so much wood to 
be wasted.^' 

"■ Well, maybe you're right, Mary Ann,'' answered 
Miss Letty, taking her seat, and folding her hands on 
her lap placidly. ^' Hard times has been the cry ever 
since I can remember, but I don't know as they seem 
to get any harder now. However, father always told 
me I didn't have a saving bone in me. As he said — 
poor father — I burnt off my caudle double at one end 
what I saved at the other." 

'^ Well, of course you are free to do as you please, 
Letitia," said Mary Ann. "You are just one to 
yourself, and when you are gone, you'll leave none 
behind to suffer. But as for times bein' no harder, 
whatever are you thinkin' of? What's to hinder 
them f'om bein' hard, with cotton at five cents, and 
meat a-gettin' higher? Maybe you just ain't had it 
brought home to you, but there's no tellin' how soon 
it may come. As for me, now, I can't he'p f'om 



130 

feelin' sorry for them as do suffer, even if I'm spared 
myself, which I thank God I have been, so far. 
There's Rob Taylor, f 'rinstance. S'pose you've heard 
tell o' his trouble." 

I saw MissLetty's eyelids quiver behind her spec- 
tacles, as she snatched the little hearth-broom from 
the brass rack in the corner, and began to sweep the 
immaculate bricks desperately in search of an imag- 
inary ash. But Mary Ann went on. 

*' Yes, there's Rob and his folks goin' to be turned 
out into the big road come the fourteenth, they say. 
Reckon it'll go hard on 'em all, him an' his wife 
both gittin' along in years, an' with their big house- 
full of girls, too. Somehow, tho', I can't seem to he'p 
f'om feelin' it's a kinder judgment sent on Rob. I 
ain't never got over the way he done you, Letty, goin' 
off that-away without a word, and you never hearin' 
nothin' tel news come that he was married to Lou 
Abercrombie over there to Arcady. 'Twarn't right 
o' Rob, and I, for one, always said so." 

^' I think most of you have been too hard on Rob, 
maybe, Mary Ann," said Miss Letty, gently. '' His 
word was not given to me ever, and he had a right to 
marry whom he pleased." The words came a little 
tremulously towards the end, but she finished them 
quite bravely. 

" Well, that's as you're a mind to look at it," 
Mary Ann replied. " Rob was as good as bound to 
you, word or no word, an' kept away more than one 
man as might have made you a good husband. You 
can't he'p f om knowin' that now, Letty, for all you 
say. An' that's why I sayit seem like a judgment sent on 



131 

Rob. Not that I think youVe missed anything by 
not marryin' him, for he never was no great shakes, 
nohow, an^ it just shows how low down he's got when 
he's goin' to be sold out to satisfy a claim for five 
hundred dollars.'' 

''J^'ive hundred dollars?" Miss Letty fairly 
gasped. ^^ Five hundred dollars, did you say, Mary 
Ann ?" 

'^ Yes, that's all, an' it do seem a pitiful sum now, 
don't it, when you think of the fortune he got by Lou 
Aberorombie. That proves this is a punishment for 
him ever marryin' of her." 

'^ Five hundred dollars ! Just five hundred !" Miss 
Letty said over and over again, her voice sounding 
scarce above a whisper. ^^ It seems like provi- 
dence!" 

'^ Who did you say held this mortgage, Mary 
Ann — this mortgage against Rob Taylor ?" she asked 
by and by, with a firmness that startled me, it was so 
sudden. 

^^ The mortgage — who holds it, 'd you say, Le- 
titia?" said Mary Ann hesitatingly. ^^Oh, Perry, you 
know, he holds it. Rob, he got money f'om us two 
year ago when his wife was so low an' the chillun was 
down sick." 

^^ Five hundred dollars — " Miss Letty began 
again. '^ Wait a moment, Mary Ann, please," she 
went on quite firmly, ^^ and do you come with me, 
Nellie, child, just — " 

I think I had never seen my dear Miss Letty look 
quite so determined, tho' her hands were working 
nervously together. 



132 

"Oh, you must not do it, Miss Letty, dear, indeed 
and indeed you must not !" I said, divining her pur- 
pose, and ])uttino: my arms about her when the door 
had closed l)ehind us. 

She turned my head haek, looking into my face 
for a moment without speaking, while her poor 
wrinkled old lips trembled, and the tears trickled 
down her cheeks. 

"Suppose you were me, and Uob was Ali)cit 
Marcy, what then, child?" she asked softly. 

And I? Then for answer, I only drew her closer 
up to me and kissed tlie poor, tnMnblin«r, patient old 
lips. 

She made me carry the little tin box in, and she 
and Mary Ann stood by the table silent, uncompre- 
hending while I counted (tver again Mi-- Letty's life- 
long savings. 

"There it is, Mary Ann,'" she -aid, when 1 was 
done. "Just five hundred dollars, you see. That is 
what you said Rob owed you, wasn't it ? Take it, 
Mary Ann, take it, j)lease, and — go." 

"But the piano, IvCtty ?" asked Mary Ann, almost 
gently. 

"That will wait, and you won't, I'm afraid, Mary 
Ann," Miss Letty said. 

Mary Ann looked up hastily, but she was not quite 
equal to the passing thought of generosity. Rob 
Taylor's farm was a poor one at best, and five hun- 
dred dollars was a goodly price for it. 

" Do you come home with me, child," she said 
when she had gathered up all the money from the 
table, putting it into the crown of her bonnet, " do 



133 

you come with me, and take a receipt for this. I 
want everything to be straight.'' 

When I came back by and by with the receipt, I 
found Miss Letty sitting before the fire looking into 
the crumbling coals, a little faded gleam of youth in 
her dim blue eyes, and a sandal-wood box in her 
hands. 

'^ These were Rob's presents to me," she said quite 
sweetly, showing within the uncertain, daguerreotyped 
face of a handsome, black-eyed boy with a slack mouth, 
a crumbled bouquet of what had once been jessamine 
and azalea and sweet shrub, and on top of all a little 
old-fashioned valentine, faded and yellow with age. 
^* From your valentine," was scrawled in an unsteady, 
boyish hand across one corner. 

" He knew I would understand," said Miss Letty, 
simply. ^^And now, Nell, I think I shall write just 
the same, you know, ^ from your valentine,' and send 
it with this receipt to Rob. It can make no differ- 
ence to Lou Abercrombie, and Rob will not know — 
perhaps." 

Poor Miss Letty, putting all the love of a life- 
time into one little " perhaps." 



^ 



134 



Mrxican Joe's Freedom, 



EXICAN JOE was the most notorious cattle 
stealer in the wiiole valley, and the wonder 
was that his handsome brown neck had escaped 
the hahcr. But times had changed in Texas since the 
days when justice was administered summarily, and 
to the point — usually a rope's point. So about the 
little cabin across the creek, where Joe and Ninita 
kept house, there were always hanging strings of 
meat for the sun to dry. 

But Joe had always ready a way of explaining 
his possession of the meat strings and the tallow and 
hides which kept him in whisky and tobacco, and 
the droves that he depleted by his careful depreda- 
tions were so far away that there were no means of 
tracing his roguery. 

But, of course, a day of reckoning did come for 
Joe, as it comes for all of us sooner or later, though 
I'was not his cattle-stealing that brought it about. 

One day during the summer a man had been found 
murdered on the other side of Flat Top, and the most 
earnest effort resulted in the discovery of no clue to 
the guilty party. The District Attorney was a new 



135 

man, a tall young fellow, who set his broad-brimmed 
hat a little jauntily a-top of his over-long locks, but 
the evil-doers knew him for a ^^ hustler'^ nevertheless. 
Nobody was surprised therefore, Avhen, the following 
winter, the murdered man's watch and knife were 
found in pawn at the second-hand store on the cor- 
ner, and Mexican Joe was arrested. 

The trial created a stir in quiet little Lampasas, 
and the courthouse was crowded with spectators. 
There was some difficulty in impaneling a jury, ^nd 
the case began to draw itself out, but the interest did 
not waver. 

The only listless figure in the whole crowd was 
Ninita. 

Never once, as the case dragged, and witness after 
witness rose for testimony, did she turn her big, beau- 
tiful eyes towards the prisoner's box. With the 
shawl still pinned up about her pretty, brown-skinned 
face, she sat, not moving, save now and then to dis- 
pense the little shuck rolls from her basket to the 
hungry people about her, slipping the nickels care- 
fully into her bosom. When adjournment came, she 
would swing her basket over her arm, and moving 
with the crowd, call out " Hot tamales V with sweet- 
voiced indifference. 

But finally the last day came. The District Attor- 
ney made a strong case, telling off a string of Joe's 
evil deeds, which were as he said, " too numerous to 
mention." 

The attorney for the defence, a young fellow 
whom the Court had appointed, did the best he could 
with the material in hand. At the end of his flowery 
10 



1:56 

speech he iiiade an appeal in Ix'lialf (»f Xinita, point- 
ing to her with a mighty flourish of his k)ng arm, 
and calling her a " poor, heart-hroken wife." 

But she, the '' poor, heart-l)roken wife,'' sat dry- 
eyed and stolid through it all, and the solemn-looking 
jury filed out, to return almost immediately, with a 
verdict of guilty. 

Then, and not till then, Ninita looked at Joe, and 
a glance that puzzled those who saw it, flashed back 
at lu'r from his great dark eyes. It might have been 
a challenge; it might liave been a question ; was it a 
command, or was it a farewell? 

She got up when all was over, slipping out through 
the crowd, but lingered in the square without till the 
sheriff came leading the prisoner t(> the little stone 
jail across the way, whence he was to be taken next 
day to Austin. 

In a little while Aiw'^ face was to be >een behind 
the bars in one of the upper windows, but Xinita 
seemed scarce to notice him. \\'ithout speaking, she 
pulled her shawl close around her and passed (piickly 
down the street and across the bridge. 

That night a type-setter going home late from the 
office saw a woman flit by him in the moonlight, and 
crouch down in the shadows of the prison wall. He, 
too, crossed over and waited, hidden by the darkness. 

By and by the crouching figure arose, a pebble 
rattled against the window overhead, and Joe's face 
appeared behind the bars, all lit up in the moonlight. 

" Is it you, Xinita ?" he said. 

" It is"^ I, my Jos^," she answered softly, in her 
sweet-voiced Spanish. " Is there no other way?" 



137 

*^ No other way/' he said quietly. " I am ready.'' 

" Holy Mother of God intercede for thee and 
me/' she prayed, kneeling and crossing herself. 

" Amen!" came Joe's deep-voiced response. 

^^ Pull yourself up by the bars, my Jos^, that I 
may not touch your beautiful face, and close your lids, 
that I may not look into your dear eyes." 

He did as she had bidden him, holding on to the 
stout bars. "■ I am ready," he said. 

^^ Adios, my Jos^." 

" Adios, my Ninita." 

She put her hand to her bosom, there was a little 
gleam of steel in the moonlight, a pistol shot rang 
out clear and sharp on the night air, and the woman 
turned and fled into the darkness. 

The relaxed hands loosed hold of the bars above, 
there was a heavy fall upon the floor within, and 
Mexican Joe was free. 




138 



At thk Turn of the Stair 



CTTv GREAT, wide handsoino stair it is, w itli coni- 
ng fortal)U' steps and railintr ot' carved uak, and 
^' somehow it seems to Starr that he h)ves it 

more than any other part of the whole honse. Per- 
haps this is hecanse he always pictnres Aniee npon it, 
just as he saw her for the first time that Cliristmas 
morning h)ng ago. 

He was sitting alone in the great hall before the 
l)ig open fire waiting for Kol)ert to come down, when 
a soft tread upon the steps made him look up, and he 
saw Anice. She had stopped at the hroad turn of the 
stair to pluek a hit of trailing vine that hung from 
the high arched window's ledge, and the early morn- 
ing sun broke itself about her, besprinkling her blue 
dress and her gold-brown hair. 

She came down when she saw him, holding out 
her hand. *' I am Anice," she said, simply. ^' Robert 
told us to expect you, and we are very glad you are 
come.'' 

That was all, but even then Starr loved her. She 
was only a slip of a girl in those days, and he was not 
a right young man, but he waited, watching for her 



139 

every morning during the holidays, and feeling glad 
the whole day through if he caught a glimpse of her 
as she came down the stair. 

For three years Starr came at intervals with 
Robert, all the while growing more and more to love 
the young sister of his friend, and finding always a 
hearty welcome in his house. The Hastings were 
people whom everybody knew and everybody liked. 
Judge Hastings was a hearty, cheerful old man, well 
past middle life, and his wife w^as one of those rare 
beings who are ever young because of the youth in 
their hearts. Besides Anice was an older daughter, 
Betty, and these, with Robert, made up the family. 
The two girls belonged to the same general type, and 
to the casual observer seemed much alike. But the 
resemblance was slight at most, and Starr never saw 
it, always secretly resenting any observance of it by 
others. 

Horace Starr was, as I have said, not a young 
man. His habits of life and character were well 
grounded, and grey hairs were beginning to show 
pretty thickly among the black above his temple, but, 
in spite of this, he was in some respects a man quite 
unused to the ways of the world. Big of limb and 
strong of body, he had a mind considerably above 
the average, which every advantage of travel and 
study had conspired to cultivate. Yet he was, in one 
respect, at least, a painfully timid man. He would 
have stood unflinchingly before the cannon's mouth, 
and was in all his relations with men a man, yet 
withal he had a most intense and ungovernable fear 
of women. Even his own mother inspired him with 



140 

a kind of awe wliicli lie could never (jiiite overcome, 
and it was with niueli the same feelintj^ that he re- 
garded Anice, in spite of his great hjve for her. This 
made him timid Ix'fore her, and through all the years 
he had not spoken, only half fancying that she could 
over care for him, and living during the absences 
from her njion the picture of her with the sunlight on 
her face. 

()ne morning — it was ( 'hristma>, the fourth since 
he had known Anic( — Starr sat before the fresh-bnilt 
lire in the wide hall, watching the tlame tongues Hare 
and Hicker and reHect themscKcs in the high brass 
hand-irons and pidished fender. lie wa< waiting till 
he sh(Md(l hear .Vniee's footfall on the stair. lie had 
studied her well througjj the years, and knew it was 
her custiuu to l)e I'arliest dow n in the morning, and 
he had always meant to stoji hei- sometime just at the 
turning wlieii the >un lighte<l all her fice, and tell her 
that he loved her. 

Was she later than u>ual thi- iiioi'iiing, or only 
his own perturbation that made him think so'.' He 
felt his heart beat louder than the ci'ackling of the 
fire, and the passing minutes secmetl houi< in his 
eager expectancy. 

But, at la>t I There was a sound of her footstep, 
and the soft, almost inaudible murmur of garments. 
She was coming I He waited till she paused iij)on 
the turn of the stair and then himself sprang up the 
few intervening steps to meet her. It seemed to him 
that his feet scarce touched the stair, and he trembled 
so that he held on to the railing for su])port. There 
she stood in the old place, to be sure, with her head 



141 

slightly turned and her sweet face making now only 
a blot against the pane, for the sun was streaming 
down to him and blinding his eyes. 

" Do not come down, please/' he said very gently, 
holding out his hand to her. ^^ I have been waiting to 
speak to you just here. I wanted to tell you that I 
love you, and ask you to be my wife.'' 

His head was in a whirl, and he bowed it as if in 
prayer. He heard her take a step forward, he felt 
her put her little hand in his outstretched one, and, 
lifting his glad eyes, he found himself face to face 
with — Betty. 

" I shall not say this is a surprise to me, Horace,'' 
she was saying, "for I have hoped for it always, and 
have loved you always." 

But he heard as one in a dream, feeling his life- 
tide ebbing with every word, for behind her, coming 
down the stair, was Anice. Horace looked up at her 
as she came under the window, and would have 
thrown himself down at her feet for the very love of 
her, but Betty stood aside to let her pass, and she 
swept by him unheeding, her beautiful face all full of 
pain, and a look in her eyes that crushed him. AVas it 
for this he had waited? O God! O God! He 
fancied that he cried aloud in the enormity of his 
grief, and would have fallen, but Betty, all unheed- 
ing in her own joy, slipped her arm in his and led 
rather than followed him down the stairs. 

" I have brought you a son for a Christmas 
present,^' she said gayly, as they met her father and 
niother on the way to the breakfast room, but Horace 
received their cheerful greeting silently. His heart 



14-2 

was l)urstin^, iind he longed to crv out his <:;reat love 
for Anicc and curse the confusion of his horrible 
blunder. Yet — he dared not! IJetty had said she 
loved, had ])roniised to be his wife I He was no 
longer free I He might never more wait f)r Anice 
on the stair, nor start up glad for her coming. Was 
this the price of a man's honor? O God! (3 
(iod ! Was the suffering only his to bear? What 
meant the strange look in An ice's eyes when she 
])assed him? She had heard, and misunderstood, and 
now he could never tell her. () (lodl () (lod! 

How the breakfast passed he never knew, exce})t 
that Anice did not come. Some one found her by and 
by, in the little copse behind the rose garden, lying 
j)rone upon the frosty earth with the same tense lo(dv 
on \\vv l)eautiful young face. They picked her up 
and carried her in, but, save for a pitiful moan as 
they bore her o'er the turning of the stair, she neither 
spoke nor uttered a sound. All through the weary 
days of waiting, as she hiy 'twixt life and death, no 
word escaped her; only the sharp look of silent 
suffering never left her face. But once when Betty 
carried Horace into the room to see her, she turned 
her big blue eyes up to him and smiled. Had she 
understood? But the eyelids (juivered, the smile 
faded from the poor still lips that might speak no 
more forever ! 

Horace buried his face in his hand and wept with 
the sorrow of a strong man stricken when they bore 
the poor prone body down the stair. The sun in his 
glory glinted on the silver of the coffin, and the 
trailing vine swept across it tenderly, but he might 



143 



not kiss the poor dead lips of the woman whom he 
loved ! 

Long years have passed since then, but the early 
Christmas morning finds Horace ever faithful at his 
vigil in the wide hall before the glowing fire, and 
sometimes he will start up, fancying he hears a step 
on the stair, and that he will see Anice coming to him 
across the weary waiting time. 

"Have you come at last, Anice ?^' he will cry 
joyously, to hear Betty's voice call down to him: 
" It is I, Horace, dear. Why do you always call me 
Anice, at Christmas time, I wonder?^' 

And he only puts his hand before his eyes to keep 
in yet a little while the picture of his love upon the 
turning of the stair. 




144 



Only a Trami>. 



fAY after day ])a.>^scMl, bringini; no rain to the 
thirsty, windblown valley. The snn earne np 
every morning into a dry, (in])ty sky, and 
every evening sank down behind the brown hills in 
a perfcet bla/e of glory. The dronth held full sway. 
Tanks weri' <lry, cistern- were drained, and for all 
the thirsting cattle in tlu' |)ar('hing pastnres there 
^vas left only the water of the little cress-grown 
creek, which, skirting the town, bore on to the river 
the salt and snlphnrons How from Lampasas' never- 
failing springs. 

From north and sonth and ea>t and we>t, through 
all the sun-strnek valley, came cowboys driving 
their herds down the ntirrow streets to the cool creek- 
side. 

One quiet evening down the western hill-slope^ 
there came a band in full swing, the dry grass break- 
ing crisply beneath the cattle's tread and the fine dust 
stirred into a dense cloud. Straight on eastward, 
toward the ford, spurred the leading horseman, cal- 
ling out his musical halloo; but the grateful smell of 
the salt water near at hand reached the eager nostrils 



145 

of the thirsty cattle, and down an unprotected alley- 
way running southward, the head of the band turned 
sharply. In a moment, with digging of spurs, with 
whoop and halloo and shout and whistle, the horse- 
men were after, and some even gained the head of 
the onrushing column. But, 'Met ^ em go,'' called 
the leader, above the mingle of voices, and the stam- 
peding drove, with five hundered parching throats, 
followed panting down the narrow lane between 
lines of barbed wire fence. 

A man coming through the alley from the other 
end, saw the onrushing drove and waited, looking 
about him frightened and helpless. A pitiful figure 
he must have been at any time with his poor, stooped 
shoulders, and his ragged, dust-stained clothes, but 
in the face of the oncoming danger, he stood a picture 
of utter impotency. 

"Head off the idiot struck dumb there," yelled 
a cowboy from the rear. 

''Gome off! He's only a tramp. Let him run 
for it," called back the leader, cutting at the man 
with his quirt as he galloped by. " Clear out of this, 
can't you ? " 

At first the man only started ; then, reaching up 
his arm, he grasped the stout limb of a mesquite 
under which he was standing, and pulled himself up 
into the tree, his long legs dangling. 

" Take in your shanks, you bloomin' coward," 
said the cowboy spurring past. There was a sharp 
whistle as the riata sped through the air, and the man 
in the tree felt the well-aimed rope whirr across his 
feet, cutting and burning into the thin ankles that 



146 

showed betwoL'ii the ragged trousers and h)\v, loppiug 
shoes. 

But there was someone else in the narrow street 
besides the tramp wlio saw with consternation the 
onrushing, nuuhlened cattle. In the middle of the 
alley, halt-hidden by a clump of green-white milk- 
weed, a child, a little thing, scarce more than a babe, 
stopped her gathering of" prickly cactus apples, and 
stood unmoving with wide-open, startled eyes. One 
of the galloping cowboys, casting his eye backward 
over his shoulder, caught sight of the little white 
still figure, and turned his pony sharply, but the mad 
cows were coming with frantic pace, snorting and 
bellowing in the dust-cloud. 

And the man up in the tree? Looking down 
from his perch of safety, he saw the child almost 
beneath him. The rose-red juice of the cactus fruit 
had stained her lips and dripped down upon her 
white dress. My God I It looked like blood. The 
blood of a young child — O God I O God ! 

With one wild leap through the feathery mescpiite 
boughs the man was on his feet, a ])istol in each out- 
stretched hand, between the child and the on-coming 
death. Above the tumult of shout and bellow the bul- 
lets sang out clear and sharp : the two foremost cows 
snorted, sprang their length, and dropped dead in the 
dust. There was gained only a second's interval, but 
with sudden swerve the cowboy had caught the child 
up before him and was galloping on in safety. 

And the tramp? 

They picked him up by and by w^hen the moving 
mass of hoofs and horns had passed in the dust-cloud. 



147 

his poor mangled body begrimed with his own life's 
blood. 

It was the longest procession Lampasas had ever 
seen which followed up the northern hill-slope to the 
little cemetery next day. The cowboys, with big 
spurs rattling and high heels clinking against the 
stones, bore the cofBn all the way on their shoulders. 
In no other way could they so honor the man whom, 
in the pride of their centaur-like horsemanship, they 
had taunted as " a tramp.'^ 

They knew no name to carve upon the marble 
shaft they reared above him, taller than any in the 
whole grave-yard, but on the stone one reads now" : 

^^ To the memory " — not of a tramp, but '^ of a 
hero.'' 




148 



The Wild Huntsman of Sequat- 
chie Valeey. 



CHAP IKK 1 



CTj'LAX (JIFFAKI), scrainhling liiro' the tangle of 
Ij^ uiulerbru.shjcainesiuldt'nly iijxui a little clearing 
^ against the mountain-side wliicli seemed scarce 

large enough for the one rickety eahin that it hehl 
nestling there with its green cabbage garden and few 
scraggy, stunted fruit trees among the over- hanging 
oaks and chestnuts. He was (|uite heated by his long- 
pull, and sat down to rest a moment on a little ledge 
of rock, putting his color-box down beside him. 

"Tired, ain't yer?" He was startled by hearing 
a voice ask just above him, and looking up he saw, 
leaning against the broken, half-tumbled-down rail 
fence, a tliin-faced, keen-eyed old w(mian, who stood 
contemplating him quite complacently. 

"Pretty tired," he said, good-naturedly, smiling 
up at her with his frank, grey eyes. " I've lost my 
way, too, and have had (juite a scramble of it over 
these rocks." 



149 

" Lost, air yer ? Now that\s a party come off, ain't 
it ? Stoppin' up to Monteagle ?'^ the old woman asked. 

" Yes," Giffard answered. 

'Mir yer to the hotel, or on the Grounds?'' 

'' On the Grounds." 

'' Many folks thar now ?'' 

^'I don't know, I am sure/' he said. ''I have 
only just come myself, and this is my first season." 

The old woman looked him over from head to 
foot quite seriously for a moment, with her chin rest- 
ing upon her folded arms on the fence. Then, fixing 
her gaze upon the box at Giffard's feet, she said, with 
a little dip of her head : 

'' Book agent ? " 

" No," he said, his eyes following her gaze : '^ that's 
a color-box. I am a painter." 

'^ Oh, yer air?" she said. '' 'Lowed yer's sump'- 
nother time I seen yer didn't have no legs to yer 
pants." 

^' Knickerbockers are better for climbing over 
your rocks," he said, laughingly, as he got up. 'Mnd 
now, will you be kind enough to direct me to the 
shortest trail up to Monteagle?" 

'^ The Pipe Line's the nighest way up," she said, 
without moving. 

'' The Pipe Line ? What is that ?" he asked. 

" The trail up 'long the line er pipe that takes the 
water up to Monteagle f 'um the spring down thar in 
the valley. It's the nighest cut, but you couldn't 
never fin' it by yerse'f " 

" I think I should like to try, if you will direct 
me," he said, picking up his box. 



150 

" Don't jes' know wliar 'tis myse'f,'' the old woman 
went on, still unpiirturhed. '^Vin't never to say been 
thater way, Imt Loaniie here'll show yer." 

For the first time, Ahin noticed the ^irl who had 
come up from beneatli the peach-trees, and was stand- 
ing behind her mother. She was a tall, slender, un- 
formed young thing, with a gh)W of color under her 
brown skin, and a subdued fire in her hirge, dark eyes. 
There was an irre«:uh\rity and hick of harmonious de- 
velo})ment about tiic face that made it fall short of 
being a ])retty one, but even the severe arrangement 
of.the coal-black, straight hair, which was parted down 
the middle and brushed into a tight coil high off the 
neck behind, did not mar the beautv <»f the well-poised 
head. 

(Jiffard noted all this as he followed her quick free 
strides up the mountain path. Once, an over-hang- 
ing branch caught the skirt of her thin calico dress, 
and her foot slip])ed on a stone. In a moment he was 
beside her, and, having released her, held out his hand 
to hel]) her up the next turning. She looked at him 
a little curiously from beneath her long lashes, and 
sprang lightly up before him again. She did not speak 
during the whole way, and at last, when they had 
climbed up under the projecting stones of Warren's 
Point, and the peaceful hazy valley lay stretched be- 
low, with the sun just dipping like a ball of Hre 
behind the blue peaks beyond, she only gave a little 
sidelong glance at Giflard, and, with a gesture that 
was comprehensive in its very simplicity, waved her 
hand outward toward the mists and the mountains 
and the sunset. 



151 

" Beautiful/' he said, answering the question of her 
look, and following her to the Point's edge. 

" It^s purtier'n that over thar beyant the moun- 
tains where the sun's gone/' she said. 

" YouVe been over there ? ^' he asked, looking 
down at her. 

" No/' she said, without turning her head. " I 
ain't been, that's how I know it's purtier there." 

" That is rather doubtful philosophy, I fear," said 
Giffard, moving nearer to the edge. A moment later, 
Avhen he turned to speak to the girl, she was gone, and 
he followed the broad sandy road which he knew 
would lead him to the Assembly Grounds. Mean- 
while, the girl, dropping quickly down the accustomed 
trail, was startled when she emerged into the moun- 
tain road below, to hear the loose rattle of an empty 
wagon. 

" Come up thar, Baldy," said the driver, in the 
slow mountain drawl. 

" Lor', it's Dave," said Loanne, springing back 
and hiding herself among the dense growth that over- 
hung the road. 

The slow lazy oxen passed up the rocky road be- 
neath her, the loose plank that stood for wagon-body 
rattled noisily, and upon them the empty barrels 
bumped tipsily together at every jolt. Behind, with 
long slow strides, followed Dave, clad in an ample 
shirt of blue stripes and wide trousers of brown jeans. 
His big ash-colored felt hat flopped down over his 
ears, his scant, straw-colored hair hung lankly upon 
his thin neck, and his small grey-blue eyes were 
closely set above his sallow cheeks. 
11 



152 



Loaniie hail crouched (h)\\n l)chiiul an uprooted 
tree, hut as Dave came up just l)eh)\v, a h)()se stone, 
disphiecd hy her foot, ratth'd noisily in the wooded 
stillness down into the i-oad before him. 

" Lor', Loaiiiic, I like ter not seen yer," lie >«aid, 
sj>rini;'imi- up the slope, and layin<»; his hand on ln'i- 
arm. 

" Lennne loose, I )ave Jiyee," >he >aid. riiei'e was 
a look in her eyes that I>a\'e <lid nnt understand, and 
her words startled him. 

" Lor\ Loanne, did 1 -keer yei'V Sho' 1 'lowe(l 
yer seen me an' war j<'s" hidin' tei- de\il me, sho' 1 
did," he said, eoueiliatorily. 

" 1 heen't skeert." The girl's eyes Hashed down 
at him, and she drew widl hack amid the scra<i:gy, ni>- 
tiirned roots. 

" Well, what ails yer now, Loannt*? Yer heen't 
mad, he yer? Sho\ yer know 1 never aimed to pester 
yer. I war jes' stud'in' hout'n yer whenst I come 
erloug. Seem's ef I been stud'in' bout yer sence yer 
warn't no hii::her'n my boot-lei^-, and yei* beeiTt ;^-oin' 
back on me n(»w, be yi-rV Sence yer give me yer 
word to marry me, scem's ef the groun's been too sorf 
ter tread on an' I's minin' to go down thar an' git yer 
on my way back an' take yer down the cove ter see how 
nice the little cabin looks. It's all ready an' waitin' 
fur yer, Loanne, an' yistiddy I cut a gum log down 
the ravine, an' sot it up under the ol' ches'nut tree fur 
yer ash-hopper, an' 1 madi' a bench fur the tubs down 
ter the spring." 

Dave paused, but the girl did nf>t speak and he 
went on again. 



153 

^^ It's mighty lonesome thar now waitin' fur yer, 
but sometimes, whenst I shet my eyes, seems 'sef yer 
air jes' settin' thar on the yuther side the chimbly- 
cornder with yer knittin' in yer han's, an' sometimes 
I kin hear yer singin' an' badlin' clothes down thar 
on the little bench 'mongst the laurel. But it's mighty 
lonesome waitin', an' yer been't mad — yer been't goin' 
back on me now, Loanne?" 

The girl leaned suddenly toward him. There was a 
quick light in her eyes, and she said, laughingly, 
"• Well, you be a fool, Dave, but I ain't mad." 

Dave made a step forward and reached out his 
hand, but she was too quick for him. Putting both 
her hands upon his broad shoulders, she gave a sudden 
push that sent him sliding down the slope, the dis- 
lodged stones rattling about him. 

" Yer better g'long after the steers, Dave, or the 
rackety bar'ls will drap over an' lose all yer pig-slop," 
called Loanne, as she disappeared up the mountain 
side. 



CHAPTER II. 

That night Alan GifFard wrote a letter. It was a 
long one, and there was much in it that concerned 
only two people, the woman who read it and the man 
who wrote it, but toward the end he said : 

'^ I think I have found a type for you up here, one 
that you might use quite effectively. She is too young 
and undeveloped yet to be beautiful, but her glorious 



154 

color and fine eye^^ make her eveu nnw suspiciously 
Dear to it. I think she will work up pretty well into 
one of your stories, and I shall make some studies of 
her so as to be able to illustrate for you au naturel. 
I shall do my best in the way of collecting material 
and storintr a\vay l«^cal color to take back to you. In 
the meantime, the girl's name is L<»anne : will that do 
for a heruine? That reminds me, I must keep my 
eves open for a hero ; but the men seem to be an unin- 
teresting lot." 

True to his promise Giffard began the very next 
day to make sketches of the girl. He found her a 
very willing model, and she p^sed well, being full of 
the unconscious, lazy naturalness of youth. One day, 
in the midst of the' posing, Dave's long lank figure 
appeared in the doorway of the little cabin, and with- 
out chanoring her position, I^janne flashed a h>ok of 
defiance at the big fellow, which in no way discon- 
certed him, however, f«>r he only sat down complac- 
entlv where he could watch Giffard's brush-strokes. 

*'* It's purtv, sho', that air pictcher yer makin'. Mis- 
ter," he said, after a little. ''An' I's thiukin', Loanue, 
I air minded ter get him ter take a portrait uvyer fur 
me ter hano: up down thar in the little cabin. It'll 
kinder he'p me out ter wait fur yer, mebbe. 

'* Yer see how it air with we'uns. Mister,*" he said, 
turning to Giflfard. '' Loanne have promised me, an' 
us air only waitin', an' whilst I air bidin' bv myse'f, 
a po'trait 'ud be a heap er comp'ny, an' I aimed ter 
ast ver how much yer'd charge ter take one fur me." 

'* Perhaps she will let me present her with one of 
my sketches a? a wedding gift," answered Giffard. 



155 

^^ Portraits are rather expensive things : I sometimes 
get hundreds of doUars for one of them." 

" Then they air fools as buys 'em, I say," said 
Dave in amazement. 

''An' you air a fool yerse'f, I say. Dave Byce," 
Loanne said, and she got up and went out of the house 
thro' the back door. For a moment Dave sat stupidly 
staring after her before he followed her out into the 
little orchard. 

That night Gilfard wrote : " The hero has appeared : 
a great hulking fellow who will probablv continue in 
common-place docility for the rest of his days, but 
who might be worked up into tragic proportions." 

When Dave followed Loanne from the house, he 
found her leaning against the old tumbled down fence 
overlooking the valley. She turned upon him scorn- 
iully as he came up. 

'^ You air a purty 'un, ain't ye, ter be telliu' the 
likes uv him in thar that bis pictchers warn't wuth 
buyin'. You air a purty 'un, ain't yer now ? " 

" I air one as ain't afeard to speak my min' ter no 
man," Dave answered ; '" an' who air he, anyhow, ter 
come pesterin' 'roun' we'uns with his pictchers an' slick 
tongue? Tell me that — " 

But the girl interrupted him : "An" 1 air one as 
ain't afeard ter speak my rain' nuther, an' I tell yer. 
Dave Byce, I air sick an' tired uv yer ugly face an' 
yer low-life ways. I air sick an' tired uv hearin' 
'bout the cabin down the cove. I air sick an' tired 
uv ever'thing, do yer hear? An' I take back the 
Avord that I give yer. Do yer hear? I air sick an' 
tired uv von." 



1 .5(1 



Dave looked at her tor a in<»iuent, as she stood, 
shaken and Hushed with passion, and then, without 
speaking, lie turned and went off* (h)wn the trail, the 
words rankling in his hosoni. 



ClIAI'TKIJ III. 

A\'hen ( Jitl'ard htokrd out <>t' his window in the 
f>arly uioi-irmL: <•!' his last day at Monteagle, the 
heauty of the mountain mist that hid the house tops 
and the white tents and dip))ed down between the 
tree-b<dls, envelojiing all in it> soft Muc haze, seemed 
somehow to ensnare him, too. Ilr had s(> wanted 
jn>t such a day, and, duriiiLi" all tlic two weeks of his 
vacation, there had been nothing- hut absolutely 
heated skies, when the sunliuht h;id seemed to sein- 
tillate upon the rocky roadside and the green, green 
'trees. 1 he >ubtle, undeveloped beauty that he some- 
times faneied he found in Loanne had made him wish 
to paint her in just sueh misty light as the mountains 
werr' to-day, and tho' everything was all j)aeked for 
travelling, he could not resist the tem])tation to get 
out his coh)rs and try to get a fpiiek eff'eet for future 
working. 

He stole downstairs softly, lor the cottagers were 
not yet awake. Throughout the grounds he met no 
one; all was (piiet and still. Even the gatekeeper 
was not at his lodge, and Giffl\rd had to (dimb the 
fenee to get out. The mist was so beautiful and so 
illusive that he had a nervous kind of feeling that the 



157 

whole thing would lift and float away before he could 
reach the little cabin down the mountain-side, and it 
was with a feeling of intense delight, as he came up 
under a ledge by the spring, that he saw Loanne her- 
self coming down the slope thro' the laurel. The 
mist was in her hair and clung to her dress, clothing 
her in beauty. The effect was just what he wanted, 
and he called to her to stand. 

The girl seemed in no way to be startled by see- 
ing him. He had told her he was going away, and 
now he seemed only to be coming back again out of 
the haze of her thoughts. She stood still when he 
called, but her heart was sounding into her very ears, 
and the blood was dancing in her veins. She dared 
not speak ; her happiness filled her and she feared it, 
too, would melt in the mist. 

Oblivious to everything save the burning fire of 
his own artistic purpose, Giffard set to work with a 
will, and Avas soon laying on the color in broad, 
vigorous dashes. The thing pleased him, and he was 
thinking of one to whom he would show it, one who 
Avould like it even better than he. 

The snapping of a dry twig sounded in the still- 
ness down the ravine. The girl gave a little start, 
and let fall the hand that held the parted laurels. 

'^ Likely it war a catamount,'' she said in a mo- 
ment, a little ashamed of her nervousness. ^' They 
air noneesech good comp'ny, nuther." 

She grasped the branch again and tried to resume 
her old position, but when Giifard turned to his can- 
vas, he frowned, and said in an absorbed impatient 
way : ^' Oh, she has lost the pose ! " 



158 

He spoke scarce above a whisper, aiul might not 
have been heard twenty steps away, l)iit Loanne's 
quick eyes cauii:lit tlie h)ok and tlie meaning of liis 
impatient gesture. 

" Don't yer be mad witli me," she >aid, pleading- 
ly ; "don't yer, fur (lod's sake. I'll d<» my best. 
I'll do anything yon say; I'll do nnytliing you want 
of me — anything, anything." 

There behind the laurel, hidden in the mist, a 
pair of (piiek ears caught the sound of the girl's voice, 
and a ])air of sharp eyes pecu'ed all inmbserved thro' 
the branehes. 

(liffard did not aii>wei-; indeed, he >earee heard 
the woi-ds, so intent was he upon his work, and the 
mist was wasting; he would have to go up and pose 
her. Springing up tlu' slope, his pallette and brushes 
still in his left hand, he put his right arm about the 
girPs shoulders, moving her head back into the old 
position. With his arm still around her, his hand 
steadying her head, he drew hims(df w(dl back from 
her to see the effect, and with absorbed eanu'stiu'.ss 
lie exchiimed : " Heautiful ! " 

To him, the word, the ])osition meant nothing 
irrelevant to his picture, and he did not feed the 
tremor that ran thro' the girl at his touch. Her face 
was very (dose to his, but he did not see a strange 
light that came into the wide-open startled eyes, nor 
bear the breath come short and (piick. His thoughts 
were elsewhere, and, letting fall his arm, he turned 
and went down the slope to his work. 

But the sharp eyes behind the laurel had seen all, 
and more. Since the day at the cabin, when Dave 



159 

had gone away after Loanne's passionate renunciation 
of him, the seeds of jealous rage which her words had 
sown had rankled in his heart, and now when he 
came thus suddenly upon her and GifFard alone in the 
mist the smouldering fire burst into flame. To him, 
Giifard's enfolding arm meant an embrace, and he 
cursed himself for a fi)ol that he had left his gun at 
home. It would have filled his heart with joy to 
send a bullet into GiiFard\s and lay him dead at 
Loanne's feet. Perhaps it would not be too late yet, 
he thought, as he slipped back thro' the laurel, and 
this time not a twig snapped beneath his stealthy 
tread. 

By the time the sifting sunlight had stolen away 
the mist, the sketch was finished, and Giffard's good 
humor had returned. 

" Come down and see it,'' he said, calling up to 
the girl, and beginning at once to wipe his brushes 
and clean his bedaubed palette. 

Loanne came down the path slowly ; her strength 
Avas spent with the long standing, and she felt still 
fluttering and tremulous. 

^^ I shall take away many things to remind me of 
the mountains/' Giifiird said w^ith clieerful indiffer- 
ence, "and I want you to let me leave you a little re- 
membrance." He ran his hand into his pocket and 
held out a five-dollar gold piece. 

" I don't want yer money," she said. 

" It is only to remember me by," he answered, 
pleasantly. 

She snatched the gold piece from him with sudden 
purpose, clasping it hard in both her hands. 



160 

" Oh, don't yer go 'way an' leave me/' she cried, 
and her voice was hoarse with j)assion. " Don't yer 
leave me ; don't yer leave me! Only jes' take me er- 
long with yer. I won't pester yer ; I'll do anything 
you say, but don't yer leave me ; don't yer leave me ! '' 

The girl's words struck him as a blow ; long after- 
Avards the inemoiw of thcni canic i)ack to him with 
paini'ul echo. 

But now, when her passionate outburst was over, 
the girl sank down upon the stones at his feet, cover- 
ing her face with her hands. Bending over her he 
])Ut his hand upon her head and said gently : 

" There i> no place for you, child, in tiie world 
where 1 am going. It is better foi* you here. I>y 
and by it will all come right." 

His s(>berness (juieted her. JShe lay in a heap on 
the stones, sobbing, but making no effort to speak, 
even when he left her and eliinlxd up the slope be- 
twixt the odorous laurel. 



CIlAPrKR IV. 

It must have been scarely ten minutes later that, 
stealing noiselessly through the underl)rush, Dave 
found Loanne alone upon the stones just as Giifard 
had left her. 

Bending over her, he caught her by the arm and 
shook her roughly. 

" Whar's he gone?'' he demanded. 



161 

She looked up at him with wide, startled eyes. 
For full a moment she was too dazed to think or 
speak. Then, like a flash, it all came upon her. 
The breaking of the twig over there in the laurel, the 
anger now in Dave's queer keen eyes, the menace in 
his manner, the gun in his hand — she comprehended 
all, and, at any price, she would save the life of the 
man she loved. 

^^Oh, Dave," she said, as with sudden joyousness, 
springing up and throwing her arms about his neck, 
" whar have yer been ter all this long time ? I war 
up ter the big road time an' time erg'in to see ef yer'd 
pass thater way ? an' Lor', Dave, I got right down 
foolish stud'in' 'bout yer takin' me at my word that 
day down ter the cabin. Yer ougliter knowed me 
better, Dave, yer oughter knowed me better." 

Was it the mist that had beclouded poor Dave's 
wits ? It seemed that he could in no way comprehend 
what Loanne had said, but her arms were around his 
neck and her lips were very close to his. With a 
murmer of bursting happiness, he folded the girl to 
his heart. 

'' Loanne, honey," he said, after a while as they 
sat u})on the stones? "I war er fool, I war. I 
thought yer meant them words yer give that day at 
the cabin ; I war er fool all erlong, an' ef I'd er found 
him here whenst I come back with the gun, I'd er kilt 
him, I would." 

Even as he spoke the whistle of a locomotive 
sounded from above. 

''What war that, Dave?" asked Loanne breath- 
lessly. 



162 

^' It air the niorninjj^ train Icavin' ^lonteagle," he 
saifl, and slie knew that her purpose was wrouij^ht, 
that Gitfiird was safe. 

During the few days that foUowed, before Dave 
and Loanne stood in tlie little front room at Squire 
]Miller\s, and were made man and wife, the girl seemed 
like one daft. She sat looking on, rpiiet and listless, 
whih' the old woman made a few hasty })reparations 
for the wedding; but sometimes a strange fire shone 
in her large dark eyes when she turned them toward 
the westward as the sun sank 

There liad been one or two sketches, wet or un- 
finished, left l)y (iiffard at the little cabin. These, and 
an old slouch hat which lie liad used to shade his eyes, 
and a paint-stained silk handkerchief, L(>anne took 
the day before her wedding and went with them down 
the mountain-side. 

^' She air goin' ter fling 'em inter the Kif't," her 
mother said to herself, looking sadly after her as she 
left the cabin. 

Dave was a little alarmed when the sad-eyed, 
white-faced bride who followed him home grew daily 
sadder and paler. He fancied his own presence 
wearied her, and left her more and more to herself in 
the little cabin where he had meant they should be so 
happy together. 

*'8he ain't use'n to me yit," he said. '' I'll give 
her time." 

One evening, as he wandered about the mountain, 
thinking of his wife, and feeling more than usually 
desolate and lone, he heard, suddenlv, the sound of a 



163 

woman's voice. It was in a wild, mnch broken part 
of the mountains ; there were cuts and rifts and deep 
gorges hiding underneath the brush, and down the 
slope was a cave, usually Aveird and dark, but from 
this there seemed to come now a faint flickering light. 
Crawling close to the cliif ^s edge, Dave lay flat down, 
peering over, with his rifle in his hand. The light in 
the cave came from a small bit of candle that flared 
and sputtered in a bottle's mouth, and it showed on 
the rough walls a few half-finished sketches, a silk 
handkerchief pinned up banner-wise, and an old 
slouch hat. Dave saw and knew them all, and in 
their midst, kneeling upon the floor of the cave, was 
Loanne. Up there above on the cliff's edge where 
he lay concealed, Dave could hear her deep sobbing. 
For full a moment he only gazed at her, scarce moving 
a muscle. Then — there was a flash of fire, and a rifle 
ball sped through the space below, throwing the girl 
upon her face. 

When they found her the next morning, the white 
tallow of the wasted candle had run down across the 
pool of blood that crept between her dead lips. 

The little cabin down the mountain-side still 
stands, empty and desolate now, but the gum-hopper 
under the chestnut has tumbled to the ground long 
ago, ashless and rotten, and, around the little bench 
at the spring among the laurel, there lingers only 
a haunting echo of the dreary beating of dripping 
clothes. 

On the other side of the ridge, sometimes women 
at their milking in the late eventide, or men tending 



164 



cattle in the deep gorges, are startled by the apparition 
of the " White Stag," and in pursuit of him a strange, 
fierce-eyed man with long, unkempt, straw-colored 
hair. They call him ^' The Wild Huntsman of Se- 
quatchie Valley," and the mountains tell no tales. 




" She saw coniinu: in to lier a young girl with a l)ig 
bunrh of rose^ in her hand." — Page 174. 



165 



Miss PiM's Party. 



lOBODY ever knew how it came about that she 
gave a party, and least of all Miss Pirn her- 
self. It just popped into her head, she said, 
and she did it. 

Perhaps it was the quantity of oysters that Miss 
Pim saw every afternoon as she returned home, and 
the big piles of empty shells which Pasquale himself 
would be heaping up on the sidewalk next morning 
as she went back to her work, that first made her 
think of an oyster supper. Perhaps it was the glow- 
ing accounts of balls and parties and receptions and 
'' five-o'clocks " and high teas that she read about in 
the stale papers, which her friend '' Gloves '' some- 
times gave her as she passed through the salesroom on 
her way to the fourth-story, for Miss Pim was a cutter 
in the ready-made department of Great & Co. Now 
Miss Pim was fond of saying that she had chosen 
work of this kind because her tastes ran that way. 
In' the little village up country where had been 
her home, she had, she declared, excellent advan- 
tages in art, and once thought of making it her 
profession, '' but," and Miss Pim's eyes were seldom 



dry when she spoke' of it, " dear papa had died, 
and there had been mamma to think of," and so she 
had just eome down to the city and taken work as a 
cutter because it was in her line, as it were, since she 
had such an eye for form. Mamma was dead now, 
and there was only Miss I^im's self for her to think 
about, but still newspa]>ers were a little beyond her. 
^Miloves" confided to her that she herself had them 
from a *' feller" who was a typesetter, and who some- 
times came to walk home with her nights. 

But, howL'ver it came about, Miss Pim was fully 
determined to have an oyster suj)per in honor (»f the 
anniversary of her own birthday. " In all the born 
days of her life," she said she had never tasted oys- 
ters, and with deliberate avoidance of the important 
(juestion as to what length of time was measured 
thereby, would simj)ly add that " she couldn't do it 
any younger." So that part of the matter was settled ; 
she would have an oyster supper. It was so very for- 
tunate, she declared, that her birthday came in No- 
viMuber, a month with the talismanic " r" in it; really 
it seemed to be intended that she shcndd have an oys- 
ter supper. 

Miss Pim began to think of it and plan for it 
weeks before it came of!'. At first she was in a state 
of great perturbation to know what to have besides 
ovsters. They were such an unknown (juantity to her 
tliat she found it difficult to work up a repast with 
them at the focal point. Perhaps after this she 
wouldn't like them, they did look so "messy " when 
Mr. Pasquale took them out of their shells, but try them 
she must and would. Miss Pim felt it over her like 



167 

a covering that she would rather have died than confess 
to ^^ Gloves" her ignorance in regard to the bivalves, 
but, nevertheless, determined, since nothing else of- 
fered, to obtain from her quondam friend all the sec- 
ond-hand information she could without degradation 
to herself. She sacrificed her morning nap upon the 
altar of her desire for knowledge, and spent all her spare 
moments at the glove counter listening to her friend^s 
accounts of the ^^entertainments" which she seemed 
to be in a chronic state of attending. But somehow 
these conversations always left Miss Pim with only a 
vague conglomerated idea of '^ fellers " and ^^Wooster" 
and " oystyers," all of which, and especially the lat- 
ter pronunciation, convinced Miss Pim that ^^ Gloves " 
had been a '^ girl " before she became a " saleslady." 
This settled Miss Pim's mind on the subject of invit- 
ing ^' Gloves " to her supper. She was well enough in 
her way to be sure, and very nice indeed at the store, 
but — and Miss Pim asked herself the question more 
than once — " would she be an agreeable social ac- 
quaintance ? " 

In fact, the question of guests became a very im- 
portant one. Whom to invite Miss Pim knew not. 
To be sure the cobbler down stairs spoke to her every 
morning as she passed, but frequently he had patched 
her well-worn shoes, so of course he was out of the 
question. The little milliner on the first floor, with 
whom she had what she called some '^ social acquaint- 
ance," had once given a tea to which Miss Pim was 
not invited, so that left her out. The Simpkins, Mr. 
and Mrs., agent and saleslady, were not to be con- 
sidered, since they were, as Miss Pim expressed it, 
12 



168 

" utterly devoid of sentiment." Some other time she 
would invite them, but to this, her first oyster supper, 
lier guests mu-t ho from the social svorhl — the chosen 
'*400" itself. 

It is true Miss Pirn's \va> only a newspaper ae- 
quaintiince with ''the set," hut that would serve her 
jMirpose, perhaps, as well as any. Long before the 
event was to take place, she conned the social col- 
umns of her stock -in-hand of ncwsj)apers, making 
selection of the guests she would invite. After much 
cogitation she decided to have four (H)uples and one 
*'odd irentleman." " The ten of us will make such a 
nice-sized })arty," she said. Though Missl^im's hair 
was turned quite grey, and steel-rimmed spectacles 
held down the loose curls of it that clustered about 
her ears, her heart began to give a little Huitei- when 
she began to scan the papers for the name of the " odd 
gentleman" whom she would invite to her supper. 

You will sec from all this that Miss Pim was in 
the highest degree romantic, but, singularly enough, 
she determined that she wouhl have a good, strong, 
sensible-sounding name for her '' odd gentleman," 
and this she hit U|)on to her satisfaction in Adam 
Croft. It made no diiferenc(> to her that the papers 
from which she selected were out of date, she saw this 
name recurring so fre(juently, and the owner of it 
seemed to be so popular, that she felt perfectly satis- 
fied that her choice was a wnse one. 

As to ladies, the first one Miss Pim hit upon to 
invite was a certain Miss Alexia Brain, who, it would 
appear, went everywhere. Now, once upon a time, 
lAiss Pim herself had two names, and that one which 



169 

she had lost a^long with her father and mother and the 
friends of her village childhood was none other than 
Alexia, and that is why Miss Brain, her namesake, 
eame to be the heroine of all her romances about the 
^^ upper ten,'' as Adam Croft was the hero, and why 
those two were to be the first invited. The other 
guests she selected in a haphazard kind of way, set- 
tlinir upon a D, an E, an F and a G, an H, an I and 
a J.' 

But liow were they to be invited? Miss Pim's 
first idea was to write a card to each one and then 
stuff the whole batch of invitations up the chimney, 
as she had used to do hitters to Santa Claus long ago. 
But somehow that seemed too much make believe, and 
she finally determined to spend nine oF lier hoard of 
pennies for stamps, and mail the cards, addressed to the 
" city " at large which was as much as Miss Pim knew 
of the whereabouts of the guests she was inviting. 
This gave much more tangibility to tlie thing and 
pleased her beyond measure. 

Upon the cards she intended for Alexia Brain and 
Adam Croft she spent particular pains. On the for- 
mer she wrote simply in her little, neat, stifi' hand : 
^^ At home. Miss Pim. November 21st. Room 17, 
No. 413 Blank street," and around the margin she 
scattered pen drawings of oysters on the half shell. 
She had hit upon this as being an excellent way of 
announcing ''the style of entertainment;" but the 
card which Adam Avas to receive she felt must be 
more ornate still, since he was to be the " odd gentle- 
man ;'' so, instead of pen drawings, she painted for- 
get-me-nots and bow-knots all around in water-color, 



170 

ami (lid the \vritiii<:- in <rili with ;i vorv tine brush. It 
wa.s vtTy " pritly,'' as Miss V\in calh-d it, and tlu* 
next morning as she went dnwn stairs eanyini; her 
dainty j)a(ket of nine cards, all duly signed, s( aled 
and acMressi'd, her heart heat very iiist, and she had a 
va^uc tear that she would trip and x-atter lur precious 
invitatifuis over the dusty steps. 

To make the descent more ditlicult, the new ytKing 
man was just comiuir up, and Miss Pim was in sucii a 
state of perturbation that she could scarctdy return the 
bow he gave her, but which she afterwards, however, 
stoutly declared wa> a remarkably gallant one. Now, 
the new young man was a tall, broad-shouldered, good- 
lo(>king tellow, who had rented the little room at the 
end of the hall trom Miss l*im\s,and who kept a light 
burning in his room half the night. Miss Pim's 
kindly iieart misgave her that she could not invite 
this y()ung man tt» liei- party. Though he wore a 
rough great-coat and only a simple wide-awake atop 
of his crisping waves (d' hair, Miss Pim fancied she 
detected the prince-in-disguise air about him, and was 
(juite sure, from a look whi(;h slu' sometimes saw in 
his handsome grey eyes, that he was in trouble, and 
she longed to comfort him. She was, moreover, cer- 
tain that he ate oysters, for she had frequently seen 
him carrying a little paper box of them to his room. 
But — and her heart sank — she could not invite him ; 
she did not even know his name, and besides it would 
not be proper, since he would be the only one who 
could really come. 

Upon the morning «d' the twenty-tirst Miss Pim 
rose early. Every crack and cranny of her little 



171 

room was swept and garnished. She got out the 
time-honored white spread that she had known on 
the company bed at home, and the embroidered pil- 
low-slips, which showed the work of her own dainty 
girlhood's fingers. She set the table, putting thereon 
the much-darned cloth of snowy damask, which was 
still sweet with ancient odor of cedar and lavender. 
Though her stock of table-ware was exhausted in lay- 
ing three covers, she kept saying to herself in child- 
ish make-believe : '^ Maybe they won't all come.'' 
There was the plate with the wreath of little tight 
pink roses all around, and the cup and saucer to 
match ; these she would put at " Alexia's place," 
she said, and the ones witli garlands and bow-knots 
must be left for ^Hhe odd gentleman." She herself 
would use the little set so gay with immodest shep- 
herdesses in short frocks, and who sat so very close 
to the wry-faced shepherds that Miss Pim fervently 
hoped none of her guests would observe them. 

She kept thinking of it all dow^n at the store, and 
wondering if she had left anything undone. It 
seemed to her the day woukl never end, but when the 
hour for closing came her heart was as light as a 
feather. There was quite a little spring in her step 
when she left the elevator, and she was just on the 
point of inviting ''Gloves" out of hand and taking 
her olf in triumph to her supper. But "Gloves" 
greeting to her was to announce that she was going to 
the theatre with her "feller," so that settled it. 

Mr. Pasquale was very gracious when she stopped 
to make her purchase of the precious oysters, and 
himself added two for " lagniappe,'' he said. He 



172 



st'lccted tlie \vhit(*««t aiul crispest >talks of celery, 
wrappliiji," tliein up earefiilly so as not to break the 
tops, and was satislied to weigh only in his soih'd hut 
douhth'ss i;-enerous tinkers the halt' pound of crackers 
that coni|)leted Iter order. 

The little cohhler was just closinir up for the 
night, when Miss Pini passed. 

" SeasiMiahle weather," he said, pleasantly, and 
Miss Pini knew fmm ids ujanner there was more to 
follow. 

" Was a lady down heiT < iH|uii-iu' tor you this 
inornin','' he went on. "Sec aiiythiiiL:- of her? A 
youngish ladv an' prrttv. I -«■(• that tlToiiLdi her 
Veil." 

"A young lady t'ii(|uii-ing t'oi- nir/"' said Miss 
l*iiu, blankly. 

" Why, you see,'' re-ponthtl the cobbler, warming 
to his subject under Miss J'im's mystificati<ui, '' first 
thing I know a carriage drove up, an' the young lady 
was gettin' out. 'I'ime 1 see her I kuctw she's that 
girl with so much money she couldn't use it all her- 
self, and so she have jest taken to lookin' roun' to 
tin' somebody as 'ill spen' it for her. ' Slummin',' vou 
know, they calls it, an' I see this girl over an' often 
passin' here on her errans, but I couldn't noways 
make out whv she's stoppin'. Well, howsomever, she 
did stop, an' J see she hidt a card in her han', an' she 
looked first at it, then at the number on the door 
there, an' then at me agin, an' then she asked (piite 
pleasant-like: 'Can you tell me, please, if Miss Pim 
lives upstairs?' 'She (h)es. Ma'am,' says I, an' then 
afore I know it she's there in the shop, the young 



173 

lady was, askiu' me all about you. ^ Do you know 
her?' says she. 'I do, Ma'am,' says I, * seein' her 
pass ever day these five years, an' patchin' for her oft 
an' on, an', if I do say it, a pleasanter lady I never 
see.' " Miss Pirn blushed quite prettily at this well- 
rounded compliment, but tlie cobbler went on. ^^ An' 
so, bein' asked, I up an' told her all about you. Miss, 
an' likewise I put the question to the young lady, if 
there was any message she would wish delivered, see- 
in's I was here constant. But she said there warn't 
none, an' she thanked me for bein' so kin', an' then 
she lef as suddint as she come, drivin' off in her car- 
riage." 

He waited for Miss Pim to speak, but she was too 
busy witli her thoughts. 

^' You don't know the young lady yourself, 
Ma'am? " he asked. 

" Oh, no, and I have no idea what she could have 
wanted." The little lady spoke quite truly, but she 
tripped upstairs with her head as full of fancies as her 
arms were full of bundles. 

Everything in the little room was just as she had 
left it. A bright fire was soon burning in the grate, 
and Miss Pim went around the table carefully blow- 
ing upon ever vacant spot of cloth, to make sure that 
no semblance of cinders or dust should cling to the 
snowy linen. She polished the little array of cups 
and saucers till they shone again, and put the crisp 
stalks of celery on a stand in the midst of all. The 
rest of the work Avas not so easy. She pressed her 
lips close together, and there was just the least bit of 
an upward tilt to her nose as she dumped the oysters 



174 

out into the little l>ovvl. She stuffevl the soaking 
paper box in the fire and set the bowl o^inircrly on 
the table. 

*' The things do look so s-s-slip[)ery," she was say- 
ing aloud to herself, when a rap at the door startled 
her almost int«) turning the littb' bowl (|uite over on 
the eloth. 

Though Miss Pini never (lontesscd even afterwards 
what she had expected, when she held the door open 
and saw coming in to her a young girl with a big 
buneh of roses in her hands, she declares in telling of 
it all now : 

" I felt 1 should faint." 

What she actually did, however, was to stand slock 
still and let the girlwith the beautiful eyes, and beau- 
tiful mouth and beautiful hair go (piite up tn her and 
say very sweetly : 

" 1 am .Vlexia Brain, Miss Pim, and 1 thank you 
so much for letting mc come to you to-night. I 
brought these roses thinking y<>n might like tluMU for 
your table." 

Now, never in Miss Pirn's born days had she seen 
so many and such beautiful roses, and when she had 
longed for them she felt that only in heaven would 
her wish be gratified, and so what did she do but just 
take tiie precious flowers in her ai*nis and droj) down 
into the little chair, and cry for very joy and wonder- 
ment, to her lifelong regret never saying a word of 
welcome to her guest. To this day she cannot tell 
liow it came about that Alexia Brain just laid her fnrs 
upon the little bed, and sat down beside her in the 
warm firelight, putting around her a ])air of strong, 



175 

young arms, and resting her head upon a firm, young 
shoulder till the flood of tears was spent. 

Slie never knew either how it happened that she 
soon came to be telling Alexia all the story of her poor 
life — it needed but a few words for this — and about 
her party and her invitations. 

"And Alexia,'' Miss Pirn would declare afterwards, 
** just sat there on my old hair-bottomed chair as nat- 
ural as if she had never been anyw^iere else in her life, 
till I fairly blinked to see if I was dreaming." 

But she knew that she was not dreaming when she 
heard firm footsteps resounding in the hallway and 
there came a moment later a knock upon her door, 
but, nevertheless, she opened it tremblingly, to find 
standing upon the threshold, without his great-coat 
and wide awake, but still broad-shouldered and hand- 
some — the " new young man." But there was a light 
in his eyes that made her forget their sadness, for they 
looked quite over Miss Pirn's head, and the girl beyond, 
in the glow of the firelight felt the warm blood mount 
to her cheek, as she said eagerly : 

"Adam Croft !" 

"Adam Croft? " echoed Miss Pim, faintly. Would 
wonders never cease ? 

" I am glad to meet you. Miss Pim. I have seen 
you frequently, and hope we shall be better neighbors." 

That is what the young man's lips said, gallantly, 
but his eyes w^ere still fire wards, his heart was beating 
"Alexia, Alexia, Alexia," and a moment later he held 
her hand in his. The girl looked up into his face, 
and then a strange thing happened. Adam Croft knew 
that a question he had been telling himself every day 



176 

and hour for the past year he eould uo longer h(H)e to 
ask, had in tliat moment been asked and answered. 
And Alexia lirain knew that a question she had so 
longed to hear had in that moment been asked, and 
rejoiced that her heart had answere<l truly. 

Is there anv more to be told? Yes, still of Miss 
Pirn's party, and -urely there was never anything 
like it. * 

Hv and bv Alexia put the rose- into the little bowl 
which Miss Pim callecl the " t>ld blue and white," but 
which she herself called a Crown Derby. 

'i'hei-e wa> only a bit of white at the girl's throat, 
and she wore a simple blue wool dress, but her cheeks 
glowed and her eyes shone beneath the curling rings 
of her brown hair, and Adam ('roft knew she had 
never l)e<'n more be:iutiful. He watched her cut thin 
slices from the loaf which Miss I'im had hastily 
brought from the cupboard, dismayed at the meagre 
sup})lv of crackers, and himself knelt beside her ou 
the hearth to helj) with the toasting. 

"A knowledge of cooking is what <;ame t<» me as a 
compensation for that money J lost,'' he said. 

" Yes, and a knowledge «)f something elsti, too," 
said the girl. " Do you think that during the year 
you have kej)t yourself away from your friends that 
none of them would be reading and recognizing the 
books you have written? " 

" I hoped you would read them," he said, '^ and 
in that hope I dipped my pen." 

Miss Pirn's joy was su])reme. 

"■ I just sat there," she says, "and looked at the 
two beautiful things till I was fairly daft for joy at 



177 



their happiness. Indeed, I know I was quite daft, 
else I never could have eaten those horrid s-s-slippery 
things which Alexia put upon my plate.'' 

Times have changed for Miss Pirn since that night, 
however, if she has never learned to eat oysters, and 
times have changed for Alexia Brain and Adam Croft. 

^' I should never have had the courage to speak if 
you had not come to Miss Pim's party, Alex, dear/' 
he always says; and she answers confidently, "Then I 
should have died, Adam, dear." 

And Miss Pim at least believes it. 



^--^ 




178 



A Brkak in thh Lhvhe. 



CHAPTER I, 



Clang! claiit; I clang I mug the big plantation bell, 
and Jeff'starttMl np, springing (Hit of IkhI bofore he 
was quite awake. 

Lights Hitted baek and forth in the yard below, 
lanterns waved and Hieki-red high up on tlie em- 
bankment at the river's cdgv, an(l beneatli the elang 
of the bell eame the eonfused shouts <d" many voices, 
and in all and through all the ominous roar of rush- 
ing water. 

^' O, God, the levee I " cried the boy, staring out 
into the night. 

Suddenly the lights all eame together, one voice 
shouted high above the rest, then the sound of fleeing 
hoof-beats, the clank of the mule's chains, the rattle of 
scrapes, and darkness! Darkness and silence, and 
then the sickening splash of caving banks and the 
inrush of maddened waters ! 

As Jeff slipped into his clothes he heard the lap 
of the water when it reached the house, and bv and 



179 

by saw the light stream through the window below, 
gleaming far out across the flooded fields. 

" Are you awake, Jeff?^' asked his mother, com- 
ing in softly, shading the candle with her hand. "Ah ! 
You know, then. The break was just in front there, 
by the big cottonwood tree.'^ 

"By the big cottonwood?'^ Jeff repeated, breath- 
lessly. " My God, mother, not there, not there ! ^' 

" What is it, lad?'' she asked, gently, putting the 
candle on the table and taking his hand in hers. 
"What is it, Jeff, dear?" she repeated when he did 
not answer. 

" O, mother," he cried, tearing his hand from hers 
and covering his face. " How can I tell you, even 
you ? Do you remember last Wednesday ? — my birth- 
day, you know," he went on, speaking rapidly and 
clutching his mother's hand again, helplessly. " As 
I started off to go hunting that morning, riding down 
the river road there just below the cut-off I met Col- 
onel Cheatham. He stopped and came back with me 
to show me a weak place in the levee just there by 
the old cottonwood in front, and he said I must be 
sure and tell father, and O, mother, what shall I do ? 
I forgot, I forgot ! " 

" O, my poor, thoughtless lad ! " said his mother, 
soothingly. 

" You'll tell father for me, Avon't you, mother ? " 
the boy cried. 

" I think I'd better not, dear," answered his 
mother, but there were tears in her eyes. " This is 
your first great trial and you must face it like a 



180 

There were tears in the boy^s eyes, too, but " 1^11 
do it mother, so help me," he said, firmly, and turned 
at once to leave the room. 

'^Mother!" he cried, suddenly, coming back and 
flinging his arms about lier. 

*' God lielj)you, my child," she said, kissing liim, 
and he was gone." 

Jefl* scarce recognized his father in the bowed and 
broken man lie found in the chamber below. Every 
lap of the water without was like a sword-thrust into 
the boy's heart, but he made his confession (juite 
bravely. Plis father listened, seeming scarce to un- 
derstand, but when it was over he said, in a voice Jeff 
never had heard before : 

"You forgot, and I may be a ruined man. You 
had better go now, I think, until I, too, forget." 

The words, the tone, smote the boy like a blow, 
stunning him. He set his lips firmly together ;ind 
left the room. 

'' Go, until J. too, forget." He heard his father's 
words over and over again in the sound of his own 
foot-fall on the bare floor. The hall door stood open 
and the swinging lam]) within sent its gleam far over 
the waste of water. Above the submerged steps a 
little row of boats rose and fell on the lapping waves, 
tethered to the posts of the veranda. Jefl'soon found 
his own little green skifl" moored among the rest, and 
it needed but a moment to reach his hat and coat 
from the spreading antlers behind the door. 

He heard the sound of his mother's foot-fall in 
the hall as the oars cut the water, but above that, 
above the beating of his heart and the rush of the 



181 

waves, he heard his father's words, and a moment 
later his skiff skimmed out of the lantern's gleam 
and the darkness swallowed him up. 



CHAPTER II. 

At Saunders' big Texas ranch in the early morn 
of that scorching October day, all was bustle and stir 
and commotion. On all the parching prairies not a 
blade of grass was left for the hungry herd ; tanks 
were empty, streams were dry and the men were 
making ready to drive the cattle out of the land of 
drought* to the flush waters and green pastures of the 
Indian Territory. 

In the dusty yard around the cabin, spurs rattled, 
saddles creaked, ponies neighed, men shouted and 
hallooed, and beyond in the great corrals, the cattle 
bleated and bellowed with their thousands of thirsty 
throats. 

" You'll have to go an' he'p Mason git up a bunch 
of cattle in the north pasture. Little Partner," said 
Saunders to a boy who stood near the cabin door fast- 
ening his spur-strap, with his arm through his pony's 
bridle. 

'' All right, sir," said the boy, springing into the 
saddle. 

" Tell Mason to fetch a thousan' an' fifty-two head, 
an' meet us at the river to-morrow night, or — bust. 
We wanter start fur the Nation in the mornin'. A 



182 

tliousan' an' iit'tv-twu licail, don't i'lir^rit now, an' ride 
like liell." 

'' 1 shall not forget," said the boy iirnily, but a 
shadow crossed over his f'aee as he spoke, a sliadow 
that did not Iciive it as he galloped otl" over the 
prairie. 

The sun streamed down, l)listeriiig his back 
through his tiannel shirt, and the Hery alkali dust 
burned into every pore of his body. The dry grass 
crinkled and crisped under his horse's hoofs, and as 
tar as the eye could rt-ach was only the scorching 
waste of brown prairie land. Kveu the empty sky 
above glowed with a white heat, and through the 
telesco})ic atmosphere the mountains far to the north- 
ward cut against it keen as a knife blade. Heat and 
dust were everywhere, with now and then the gleam 
of a white shaly river-bed, dry and glistening like a 
silver thread winding across the brown prairies, which 
the dead and dying cattle had turned into vast charnel 
houses, where the buzzards hehl full sway. 

By daybreak the next morning the cattle in the 
north ]>as'ture were bunched and ready for driving. 

'' You'd better lead with me, little 'un," Mason 
said kindly, when the boy galloped up for orders be- 
fore the march began. '* There'll be less ridin' in 
front," the man added to himself, as the boy swung 
tiirough tlie gate, ''an' the chap is sore to the touch 
now, 1 can tell by the way he sets his saddle.'' 

Mason had watched the boy narrowly, with his 
kind womanly br(>wn eyes, ever since the day of his 
coming to the ranch, and he knew, no one better, how 
the lad's bones ached from the constant fatigue which 



183 

the short snatches of rest were not long enough to 
remove ; he knew how his temples throblaed when the 
hot dry air almost boiled the blood in his veins, and 
stifled his nostrils. 

'^ The young 'un's got grit/' he told Saunders in 
his lazy way after the boy's first round-up, and he 
kept his eye upon him. 

^' We must make the river to-night or bust/' 
Mason yelled, as the herd swept out of the pen. 

The men answered with a shout, and the boy gal- 
loping along at the head of the mighty procession 
felt like a warrior going into battle, and heard Mason's 
musical halloo as a clarion cry. Behind came the 
heavy tramp of hoof-beats, the bellow of thirsty 
throats, the crack of whips and the shouts of the 
men. 

The sun was almost down when the distant 
smirch of trees against the horizon showed where 
the river lay. Mason's horse had gone lame toward 
the middle of the afternoon, and now jogged along 
stiff and painful but a short distance ahead of the 
herd. 

" Poor nag, maybe I can spell you a bit," he said, 
preparing to dismount. 

As he slipped his foot from the stirrup a noise in 
the rear startled him ; and he cast a quick eye over 
his shoulder for a moment. 

" My God, the cows have smelt water ! " he said 
breathlessly. ^' Fly fur your life, little 'un/' he went 
on, almost gently, as he rose in his saddle and leaned 
forward. " Bear to the northward," he cried. " Now 
ride like the devil, and God he'p you." 
13 



184 

The boy's Imiul tugged at th»^ bridU' aud he telt 
the pony bound forward, .stun«j^ by a blow from 
Mason's (|iiii-t. Another niomcnt and he wonhl Ix' 
safe. 

But Mason'.' In one quick backward h»ok the bov 
saw his spent p(jny ivar (Ui his lame legs, and give one 
wild leap forward : he heard a heavy thud as they 
went down, and man and horse were lying in a hea]) 
together on the dry grass in the path of the stampeding 
herd. 

"O God! () mother!" cried the boy, and his 
voice was a prayer. The pony wheeled in his tracks, 
atid bore hiiu back in the face of the oncoiuing 
deatli. 

There was one moment of breathless, eager energy 
while he slipped the loose end of his riata under 
Mason's helples> arms, and wound it nmnd the lim}> 
body; another, and he was in the stirruj) again, witli 
the lariat's loop held hard and fast on the saddle's 
horn. He felt his spurs cut deep in the j)ony's hij>s 
as the ])oor beast sprang forward, he felt the tugging 
of Mason's imj)otent body as it dragged behind ; he 
heard the swell and surge of mad voices as the infuri- 
ated beasts swej)t on in the dust cloud, he felt their 
hot breath in his face, and heard the wild neigh of 
his pony when the hoofs struck him ; then a fierce, 
sharp pain, and all was over. 



185 



CHAPTER III. 

'' Mother/' 

The boy opened his eyes for a moment, but the 
whitewashed hospital walls, the narrow cot and Saun- 
ders bending over confused him. The eyelids quivered 
and chjsed. 

Slowly it came all back to him ; the long ride, the 
hot sun, the dust and the stampeding cattle. 

'^ Where is Mason ? " he asked by and by, looking 
up again into Saunders^ kind blue eyes. 

" He's all right ngw, poor old chap," said Saun- 
ders gently, and there was more in the tone than in the 
words, but the boy understood. 

He lay quietly for a long while, with the bed- 
clothes pulled over his eyes, and the sheet was wet 
when he looked out from under it again. 

^^ Mason was kinder to me than anybody in the 
world had ever been — except my mother,'' he said by 
and by. " I wish I had been the one to go," he 
added, wearily. 

" Don't you say that, lad, don't you now," Saun- 
ders said, stroking the boy's hand with his own brown 
palm. " It'll all come right." 

" But you don't know, Saunders, you don't know," 
and the boy turned his head over on the pillow 
wearily. 

^' Maybe I do, mo'n you think fur," Saunders 
went on soothingly. ^' You've been lyin' here prit 
nigh two months now, you know, and durin' that 
time I've been here off an' on sorter constant, an' 



186 

you've said things as maybe you wouldn't 'a' said to 
me confidentially like ef you'd been at yourse'f, but 
I reckon there ain't no harm done. I was only waitin' 
tell you got strong enough to travel to ast you ef 
you wanted to go home." 

^' O, no ; I can't, Saunders, I can't," the boy cried. 

" You mean 'bout the levee, don't you ? " Saund- 
ers asked gently. " You see, you've 'tol mos' ever'- 
thing, and I jest pieced out the rest, little chap, 'an 
blamed ef I ain't felt mighty sorry fur you. That's 
straiglit now, an' no mistake, but the mo' I study 
erbout it the mo' it seem to me there was a kind of a 
hitch somewhur. Don't you misonderstan' me now, 
little 'un. I ain't never had no call to preach ; I ain't 
even been a good man, but somehow, when a feller's 
spent the best part er his life a-ridin' over these here 
ol' puraras where there don't seem to be notin' but 
jest God an' the universe, he natclielly has time to do 
a deal er thinkin'. An' anyhow seenjs the Lord 
puts diiFunt thoughts in a head after it begins to turn 
grey to what He did when it was young. Now, little 
chap, maybe so I'm wrong, but it seems to me that 
the bigges' forgettin' you done warn't erbout that 
break in tiie levee. I know it looked mighty big to 
you that niglit when the overflow come, and you 
knowed a word f 'um you 'an a few san' bags maybe 
could 'a' 'kep it out, but what I aim to say is your 
furgettin' didn't stop there. I own there ain't many 
a boy as wouldn't 'a' done jest erbout what you did 
that night when you lef ' home. I 'spect I would 'a' 
done the same thing myse'f twenty years ago, and 
maybe so I'd 'a' felt jest as proud an' jest as hurt an' 



187 

jest as brave as you did. You thought erbout all them 
that night, didn't you, little partner, an' how you'd 
do somethin' great to make up fur furgettin,' didn't 
you ? I bet you did, an' you thought erbout yourse'f 
an' you thought erbout your father, too, some, maybe, 
not jest as you would ef you'd 'a' waited tell nex' day 
or nex' week, but wasn't there somebody you furgot ? 
Somebody, too, as was wuth the whole worl' to you, 
somebody as would 'a' gone down into her grave to 
'a' saved you, somebody as waited an' watched after 
the waters went down, an' is waitin' an' watchin' yet, 
please God, when ever'body else has given you up. 
Ain't I right erbout it, little man ? " 

^^ O, Saunders, O, Saunders," said the boy, taking 
his friend's hand while the tears streamed down and 
wet the pillow, '' what shall I do ? " 

'^ There ain't no trouble 'bout answerin' that 
question now," Saunders said, " hard as it is to go 
back of our wrong-doing an' make things straight, but 
mothers is mothers wherever you put 'em, an' maybe 
so I'd a been diffunt ef mine had been left to me 
longer. But your way is clear enough, an' it ain't 
sech a powerful long jouruey f'um Texas to Louisiana" 

'' Do you mean it, Saunders?" said the boy, with 
a smile on his wan lips; "and can I go to-day?" 

" No, but it won't be very long befo'e you start ef 
you keep on like this," Saunders answered, " an' 
somehow, ol' chap, you've made it mighty easy fur 
me to tell you somethin' I've jest been bustin' to tell 
you ever sence you've been lyin' here," and Saunders 
cleared his throat while the boy looked up at him 
eagerly. 



188 

*' You s<'c," he went on slowly, " Mason warn't 
quite gono when the boys picked him up, tho' he was 
clone fur bef'o'e you got to him, lad ; the pony had fell 
aerost him, an' he'd jest breath enou«ih left to tell me 
all erbout it. Po' oF Mason I They was a smile in 
them big dyin' woman eyes < r his whrn he looked up 
at me an' said : ' Didn't 1 tell you the little ehap 
had gritV An' then he tol' me somethin' else, ])oor 
oT partnci-. Hv tol' me he didn't have nobody in the 
worl' but jest hissf^'f, but you could 'a' knowed that 
by the lonefulness in his eyes, an' he said to let his 
sheer ei- the cattle go to you. Seem's ef he kinder 
'specioned things was pretty bad with you one way or 
'nuther, an' in- tol' me to let the cows go the fust 
chance I got, nn turn the proceeds over to you. 
What do you say now to a little wad er ten thou^an' 
dollars to start home witii?" 

'* Poor old Mason," the b<»y >ai<l. :md his eyes 
were brimming with ti'ars as In* sat up in bed. "I 
can make it up lo father wnv, Saunders, can't I?" 

Two weeks later, when the Valley (|ueen steamed 
through the drawbridge at Shreveport, Jeff stood on 
her upper deck, glad with the prosp(H't of home near 
at hantl. How dear and familiar everything looked ! 
Behind were the bndvcn red hill-slopes dotted with 
cottages, the slender church spires, the crouching, 
cavernous warehouses of the little city ; beyond were 
the black })lantation lowlands, the great sprawling, 
grass-grown levees, and tlie dark, treacherous river 
winding between, shrunken now within its muddy 
banks, waiting calm and cjuiescent for the swell of 
the spring rainv to send it sweeping on in its work of 



189 

destruction. Men stood about in little squads on 
deck talking of hard times, the low price of cotton, 
and the calamitous levee system just in the old way, 
but the boy leaning against the railing looking out 
over the water heard their voices but dimly. 

When the whistle blew and the boat rounded the 
curve Jeft saw with a little pang of bitterness the old 
Cottonwood which marked his own home landing, but 
he sprang ashore joyously before the wavering stage- 
plank had touched the bank. He was not the only 
passenger for Steel Dust Plahtation, he found, as the 
men who crowded after him pushed by, hurrying up 
to the house. JefP followed eagerly. Was this the 
home-coming he had pictured so often as he rode 
over the dusty prairies, or lay on his hospital cot in 
those sweet days of convalescence? 

Surely something was wrong. About the yard 
and the stable men were hurrying to and fro, while 
others were sampling cotton from the bursting bales 
under the big gin-house shed. Teamless wagons 
blockaded the broad avenue which led to the house, 
and, under the spreading oaks, mules were bunched 
or stood in long lines tethered to the lot fence. Barn 
doors were wide open, and plows and hoes and 
scrapes, in desolate heaps, littered the lawn. 



Jeif saw it all in the brief interval which it took 
to reach the house, and the noisy chattering of the 
crowd in the hallway suddenly ceased, even the 
blatant yell of the auctioneer broke confusedly and 
his hammer fell to the floor with a bang as a bright 



190 



young voice from the doorway shouted clear above 
the eager bobbing heads: 

'' I forbid this sale ! '^ 

Jeif elbowed his way to the crier's desk, unbuck- 
ling the leather belt from beneath his coat as he went. 

*^ What is the amount of your attachment, sir?'' 
he asked. 

^' Eight thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars, 
with costs," replied the astonished auctioneer. 

'' Then dismiss the crowd and count your money," 
Jeff said, pulling a roll of bills from his belt pocket. 

And was that the end of tlie triumph? Is there 
no more to be told ? 

Some one was calling his name from the stairway, 
the crowd fell back for him to pass, and the boy 
bounded up the steps with a glad light in his eyes. 

^' Father, mother," he cried, and they folded him 
in their hearts. The victory was won, the breach 
was healed. 




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